MySpace was popular for all of 30 microseconds before politicians and political strategists thought of using it for political gain. After all, it is part of the job of a good politician to have a giant social network for good constituent relations. In other words, a good candidate for public office knows you, and wants to meet your friends and family (and beg for money, but that’s beside the point)
My point is that MySpace was never designed for this. Most social networking sites were never designed for serious dialog, and MySpace in particular seems to be more of a stealth/viral marketing engine for the 15-35 demographic than anything else.
Well, there is now something designed for the politicians who want to reach a large constituency and the citizens who want to reach policymakers without the intervention of special interest groups. It’s social networking for the group of people known as Opinion Drivers or Influencers. Not sure if you’re an Opinion Driver? If you have a blog with decent readership, you are.
I’ve talked about this before, only now it’s officially open for discussion. Still sounds promising, check it out at hotsoup.com