The Web on the Candidates

• The growing use of broadband Internet is helping Barack Obama raise more money from more people than ever before, writes the Washington Post's Jose Antonio Vargas. Not only did about a third of Obama's second-quarter earnings of $32.8 million come from online donations, but 90 percent of those donations were under $100, and half were $25 or less. Even MyDD's Jerome Armstrong, a Dean Internet advisor in 2003, calls it "the largest grass-roots campaign in history for this stage of a presidential race." Beyond the appeal of the candidate, part of the reason for the big numbers may come from increased broadband access. African American adults' connection rates have nearly tripled from 14 percent in 2005 to 40 percent this year, according to Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. "Folks online are doing things they've never done before," Rainie says.

The Candidates on the Web

• John Edwards is currently on his "Road to One America" tour, and is using a bevy of online tools to involve supporters and help them track his activities. He's using SMS and Twitter to update supporters from the road (including opt-in audio SMS messages and geo-targeted text messages), uploading photos to Flickr, and posting videos on YouTube. The campaign has consistently used all available online tools and embraced the distributed nature of the web to get their message out, and this is no exception. However, we do wonder why they haven't built one page -- on the Edwards site or elsewhere -- that unites all of this disparate voter-generated content. A page aggregating supporters' Flickr photos, uploaded videos, and texts á la George Miller's Ask George project would be a strong indicator of Edwards' grassroots support.
• Thanks to a popular contest on Eventful, in which towns are competing to bring John Edwards to their area, Edwards' Eventful numbers have substantially increased. Edwards' numbers started their ascent around June 18th, when the competition was announced, and began a steeper climb around the second week in July, when Shawn Dixon of Columbus, KY began rallying his neighbors to demand John Edwards visit their small town. The contest ends tomorrow, and it still looks like Columbus -- in first place with 1,671 demands -- will be the winner.

In Case You Missed It...

Morra Aarons offers facts and figures about the role of women online in the 2008 election.

Barack Obama | Eventful | John Edwards
Joshua Levy's blog | email this page | delicious | digg | technorati