Obama the "Wiki-Candidate": Stoner cites Noam Cohen of the NY Times:
But at the same time, Mr. Obama’s notion of persistent improvement, both of himself and of his country, reflects something newer — the collaborative, decentralized principles behind Net projects like Wikipedia and the “free and open-source software” movement. The qualities he cited to Time to describe his campaign — “openness and transparency and participation” — were ones he said “merged perfectly” with the Internet. And they may well be the qualities that make him the first real “wiki-candidate" [Noam Cohen, "The Wiki-Way to the Nomination," New York Times: Week in Review, 2008.06.08].
No wonder the South Dakota blogosphere (at the lefties among us) fell so hard for Obama. His whole style matches the Webby values that have drawn us to the Internet as a means for social interaction and change.
New-Money Machine Fueled by Web Ethos: Stoner points to Joshua Green's article in the June Atlantic Monthly on Obama's fundraising, which notes that Obama has gotten this far without "deep connections to traditional sources of wealth." The Internet is a big part of the reason -- not just Web fundraising, but Web ethos:
Green shows how many in Silicon Valley came to support Obama. Engineers, venture capitalists, and others in the Valley are used to smart, young entrepreneurs starting companies that quickly dominate a niche (think Google, begun by two Stanford students). To them, Obama’s age or lack of experience in Washington wasn’t a put off; they were attracted by his charisma and brains and out their experience and technology to work for him [Michael Stoner, "Obama Campaign Far Ahead in Use of Internet," mStonerblog, 2008.06.14].
Obama Gets YouTube: It's not just the will.i.am video that went viral back in January; the campaign knows how to put its own multimedia on the web to work for its purposes:
Also, note all the video that appears on Obama’s site. Lots of it. Speeches, policy comments, from lots of venues, on lots of issues. From the candidate (who looks good on TV) and from ordinary people. There’s also an Obama channel on Youtube; on 14 June, there were 1,103 videos posted, with 51,382,633 views. The McCain channel, in contrast, had 207 videos with 3,753,163 views [Stoner, 2008.06.14].
YouTube views aren't close to replacing electoral votes (though might the former method be more logical?), but they do show the Obama campaign is reaching out and touching a lot of people the McCain campaign is not.
The Internet isn't everything. But Barack Obama has done more than tap into a useful technology; he has shown a grasp of the social vibe that makes that technology hum. Collaboration, decentralization, participation -- if Obama can translate those online campaign principles into Presidential policy, we have an interesting four years ahead of us.
"Interesting" next four years if Obama wins is an 'interesting' way to describe increased socialism. Somehow interesting isn't a word that comes to mind to describe what that would be like.
ReplyDeleteObama has been marketed via the internet very efficiently to get this far, I have to admit that. But marketing does not equate with experience and ability to actually run this country.
Social networking, social Web... socialism! Oh no! You've figured out our plot! ;-)
ReplyDeleteActually, I've wondered to what extent Wikipedia is an example of socialism at its finest and a threat to the capitalist dogma. Comments, anyone?
check out some of my thoughts on it at
ReplyDeleteblog.aboutus.org/2008/06/09/the-wiki-way-aboutusorg-style/
and I think I have read that the founders of Wikipedia are pretty interested in Libertarianism -
Not sure about the founder of wiki. :-)
I am excited about the possibilities in front of us though!
Many academics are hesitant to reference Wikipedia. Apparently when things get too "free and open," a certain measure of accuracy, reliability, and integrity are lost.
ReplyDeleteI use Wikipedia often to gather information for my work, but always along with at least two other sources.
I notice that at least half the Web sites I try to access this morning (early, as you can see) are coming up "not found," including this one, the first three times I tried. As a techie, I appreciate the Internet, but it has serious limitations. The best way I can think of to express this notion is that the Internet is "virtually there." Almost all, but not quite all, like a person who went through the teleportation machine and lost every seventy-seventh atom when her body was reconstructed at the destination site.
A reader of one of my technical books got it for the Kindle (that Amazon gadget) and noted that at least one of the mathematical symbols came up blank. It was the uppercase Greek omega for "ohms" in electronic circuits. Maybe his computer did not have the right fonts installed. Maybe it was some other glitch. But the fact is, the book was just "not all there." The scary part is, people tolerate this sort of thing. Who cares about a little dead omega lying by the side of the road?
Now as for socalist plots ...
I view with suspicion any notions that either political party is "plotting against" the other. I saw George F. Will on Fox News the other night, suggesting that the liberals have an agenda to micromanage every aspect of our daily lives. A dear friend believed that Karl Rove and company had a plot to "eliminate the middle class." This sort of paranoia not only reflects ignorance, but is downright dangerous. It pits people against each other without reason.
However, after four years of Obama, let's see if we do not end up with gas rationing or long lines at the pump, 55-degree thermostats in the winter, spot shortages of paper goods (save that newspaper if you eat high-fiber foods), and a 60-mile-an-hour national speed limit. The flip side is that maybe we won't have so many people going into abject poverty if they choke on a bean or happen to work for the wrong company when they retire. Maybe.
My beloved Republican party has no need of any plots against it. It has done a fine job of wrecking itself. Barack Obama, if elected, ought to send a personal thank-you note to everyone in the current administration.
Hi, Stan!
ReplyDeleteBelieve me, I'm not citing Wikipedia in my DSU papers. But if I want to find something out quickly and get some links for further reading, Wikipedia is pretty good, and it has better hours than our local libraries.
On the socialist side of Wikipedia, when is the last time the free market built any sort of library, virtual or real? Socialism may not build you a Ferrari (Encyclopedia Brittanica?), but it can build Ladas (Wikipedia?) for everyone. Not flashy, not the most reliable, but a nice utilitarian product nonetheless.
Bak at ya, Cory.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised you didn't point out that plenty of "non-free" reference sources are flawed, too. You could really have nailed me there.
All my anti-malware programs are FOSS (free and open source), by the way! The "non-free" antivirus program was a total debacle, and they wanted to latch on to my credit card for the rest of my life. I told them exactly where they could go, but I doubt they heard me. (I think their Web site had been hacked.) I still can't get all of that program's droppings off my hard drive unless I want to give it a government wipe and build the whole system up all over again from the ashes.
Ah, but the free ClamWin program does the trick, and my machine runs better, too.
"For-profit" does not necessarily equal "better" -- you are right there.
Wikipedia ain't socialist, in my opinion. It's libertarian. In any case, I'm glad it's there.