31 January 2008

Obama And YouTube

Barack Obama's YouTube channel has had 11 million visits. Yes, you read that correctly.

By Tuesday afternoon, Barack Obama's response to Bush's final State of the Union was the most watched clip in the world, drawing over 300,000 views in under 20 hours. The public has shown overwhelming and sustained interest in hearing from Obama directly. This is the third Obama video to shoot into YouTube's top three in the past 10 days -- and the first video that was shot specifically for web viewers, rather than broadcasting documentary footage of a speech.
It's not just YouTube. The Washington Post reports that on Facebook, Obama has more three times the number of Clinton supporters -- 299,000 to 83,000. Obama counts 240,000 MySpace friends to Clinton's 171,000.

If he becomes the nominee, and it remains a big if, those YouTube figures will grow and grow. How many millions will be watching each of his video posts in the fortnight before the election? Will that be a good thing for him, or an incredibly volatile situation? It's uncharted presidential election territory!

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