McCain, Online Social Networker?

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.