Friday, September 12, 2008
The Republican's online social-networking presence increases at a faster rate, although absolute numbers still favor Obama.
By David Talbot
Whatever anyone thinks of Barack Obama, there's not much
question that he mastered
online social-networking technologies as a tool to help him eke out victory
against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. Is John McCain now catching
up? In realms like Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube, Obama is still far ahead of
McCain overall. But when it comes to new growth, McCain's numbers are
increasing at a faster rate. Although
in absolute numbers these increases are still smaller than Obama's increases,
the gap is narrowing.
Here are the one-week increases as of Friday at noon, as compiled by www.techpresident.com. McCain's
Facebook supporters were up 15 percent, to 323,849, compared with Obama's 5.2
percent rise, to 1,763,643. McCain's MySpace friends were up 13.3 percent, to
91,381, compared with Obama's 3.6 percent rise, to 517,454. And McCain's YouTube
views were up 11 percent, to 15,890,392, against Obama's 4.8 percent rise, to
64,223,321.
Not long ago, Obama had closer to 10 times as many Facebook
supporters, MySpace friends, and YouTube views as McCain. Whether McCain's
recent gains will make a difference in the general election obviously remains
to be seen.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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