Obama internet vs. mainstream media

By not sending his text message Friday night, about his VP pick, Obama built suspense, frenzy, and the public's perception of him being more technologically tuned-in. He got the cable TV news anchors to wave their Blackberries in the air. He got the phrase "text message" to be repeated over and over again.

This rubbed McCain's face in the plate of "I don't know how to use computers".

I think it's smart for the Obama campaign to portray John McCain as a Luddite techno-phobe who lives in 8 fancy caves. If you can't turn on a computer, send an email, comment on a blog, or Google a search term, how can you run a technological nation?

I'm not political.

I don't endorse or support any political candidate, and never will. I have a different orientation to social transformation and problem-solving.

However, Obama's use of technology is of relevance to web usability, social media, and digital communications.

The mainstream media (MSM) has for decades controlled and inordinately influenced most of the news received by public receptacles, i.e., news consumers, people who watch TV, listen to the radio, and read newspapers and magazines.

Now we have alternative message channels: the internet, web, and blogosphere.

Now we have messaging nodes called cell phones that can text news, conversations, and information from one individual to another. As the average person is now empowered to originate, transmit, and re-transmit messages, politicians who tap into this new media of digital communication will gain a certain competitive advantage, which may help them win.

Use of technology, text messaging, blogs, social networks, and mobile computing may not be the leading criteria of a suitable political leader. But it is mandatory as a qualification for leading the USA, inventor of the internet and pioneering king of the web revolution.

Web and digital technology may be one of the few remaining areas in which America can compete, as we see our manufacturing, assembling, testing, and other industries moved offshore to potentially adversarial countries like China. Bloggers must get better at blogging, web designers at web design, IT guys at IT development.

Obama gets it. He deliberately thumbed his nose at the MSM.

By not announcing his VP pick last night, on a Friday night, he ruined the evenings of many cable TV news anchors, newspaper publishers, and right-wing radio talk show hosts. Substituting speculation and random opinions for news (something they accuse bloggers of doing, btw), the mainstream media scrambled, and fumbled, and looked outmoded, and outdone.

Obama on Ustream
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/
live-campaign-coverage

Obama on Twitter
http://twitter.com/BarackObama



Obama's Twitter message re Biden VP:


Announcing Senator Joe Biden as our VP nominee. Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3pm ET on http://BarackObama.com

about 10 hours ago from web


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