Obama Loses 91% of his "Myspace" Friends

[wyldwolf]

Hey, I've never put much stock at all in "Myspace" being any indicator at all of a candidate's real popularity. Someone with enough time on his/her hands can add thousands of friends in a very short amount of time on Myspace. But anyway...

Barack Obama has apparently convinced MySpace (owned by News Corp.) to shut down his own unofficial MySpace page -- without the consent of its creator -- and re-direct its traffic to a new official page.

The dispute, according to the creator of the unofficial page, was in large part about money. He wanted to get paid for his work.

But the merits of this aside, the central point is that as so much of the online energy is directed away from the independent netroots, who have a well-developed set of rules and a sense of who owns what, and toward the corporate-owned social networking sites, big corporations like Google and News Corp. are increasingly going to play the role of mediators between politicians and their fans, and between politicians and their critics. In this case, score one for the politicians.

On the other hand, Obama lost 91% of his "friends," according to TechPresident's metric.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0507/Obamas_MySpace_Flap.html

[LaurenG]

1. I do not believe that "he lost " 91% of his "friends" for an instant

This seems like a very lame way for TechPresident's metric to bash a candidate they don't approve of. :hi:

[wyldwolf]

2. do you know how myspace works? If an account is shut down, ALL the friends are "lost."

... and you have to work to rebuild that friends list. With the unofficial Obama page gone (and it is the one that had thousands and thousands of "friends"), whoever is in charge of Obama's myspace account now has to recapture his "friends."

[zbdent]

5. and that wasn't his official site? Gee, then how did he lose his friends???

if it were his official site, then he would have lost his friends ...

And gee ... Rupert Right-Wing Murdoch ... doesn't he always support Republicans? (Not to get into that debate, but he also gave money to Senator Clinton ...) ... micro-manage much?

[wyldwolf]

7. I still don't think you're following this.. but then again, why should I care?

[zbdent]

22. What I'm saying (should you not care)

is that this never was "Obama's" friends, they were "friends" of the "friend of Obama" ... who wanted to get paid for his unsolicited services ...

If Obama had an official Myspace account, and that got shut down, then Obama would have lost 91 percent of his "friends" ...

How am I not seeing that?

[wyldwolf]

24. you are clueless to how myspace works and the definition of "friend" as it pertains to myspace

These were "friends" who, for the most part, opted in because of their respect for Obama. They cared not that it was or was not the official myspace page of Obama.

[LaurenG]

12. No I didn't realize that is how my space works.

So basically it's up to whomever is in charge to take care of and the "friends" aren't mad at Obama just literally lost. Is that what you're saying?

edit: added a word

[IA_Seth]

13. exactly...

My guess is that Obama will regain these lost "friends", but in the meantime his message was lost to a WHOLE bunch of people due to interaction between unofficial/netroots types and the official campaign.

Thats the story here, as I see it.

[wyldwolf]

14. here is the whole sordid tale...

http://www.techpresident.com/node/301

[juno jones]

3. Screw Murdoch "Myspace" n/t

[marmar]

4. I think I lost brain cells reading that blog post....

Short and pointless.

[nebenaube]

6. freelance programmers are routinely retained...

to create programs that will automatically add "friends" to myspace... Anyone on myspace with more than a 100 friends is probably faking it.

[wyldwolf]

8. actually, not exactly

People have to accept "friends" invitations. Software can send out thousands of friends requests at a time, but each of those requests have to be accepted by the myspace users they were sent to.

[ShortnFiery]

9. wyldwolf? If I didn't know better, I'd say you are on a mission to discredit Obama ...

and pump up your heroine HRC. :eyes:

[Name removed]

10. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[IA_Seth]

11. Oh geez..

What's up with the thin-skinned Dems we have here lately?

Wyldwolf didn't bash or discredit anyone, he linked a news-story and attempted to explain it (there are obviously some here who don't understand how myspace works).

Should he have removed Obama and put 'Candidate A' in it's stead? I think this story is quite appropriate, as it highlights how campaigns work with/against netroots and unofficial supporters. I found it pretty interesting myself, and I might caucus for Obama.

I just don't understand how anything that isn't peppy cheerleading is considered bashing these days.

[Adelante]

15. You are so right, Seth

Having a political discussion on this political discussion board is getting to be awfully hard work.

[Breeze54]

62. Thanks for saying that! It's like a virus is on DU!

I just don't understand how anything that isn't peppy cheerleading is considered bashing these days.

[Catchawave]

19. Kos frontpaged this story:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/2/101516/8722

Nobody's trying to discredit anyone, though I'll wait til the Campaign makes a statement before I comment on the situation.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

16. Obama being pennywise and pound foolish here

The bad PR he will reap from this will be worth a lot more than $39,000 when it's all done.
Even the folks on the Barack blog are not happy about it.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post_group/ObamaHQ/CvNt#comments

[KingofNewOrleans]

17. On the scandal-o-meter (TM Pending)

I give it a 2. It falls somewhere between Edward's hair (or Hillary's name) and the Dick Durbin "revelation".

It was a little tacky how the campaign handled it, but the MySpace "volunteer" seemed excessive in his requests for compensation. I knocked 0.5 off because I find MySpace aggrevating in general.

[illinoisprogressive]

18. I'm thinking journalists jumped before getting the whole story as it doesn't make sense

there has to be more to this story. And when the full story comes out the journalists will duck and not make it front page as they probably printed this before all facts are out.
If it turns out the campaign did wrong shame on them
but, it seems like an incomplete story and there is probably alot more to it than just taking over the page.
It just doesn't add up or make sense.
I knew if I came here it would be on a post and maybe we can figure out what the hell is going on.

[Alamom]

20. Interesting and so will be the outcome. eom.

[Colobo]

21. wyldwolf, I guess Obama needs to forget about the primaries now!

Maybe his fundaraising numbers are not even true! :sarcasm:

What a fuckin' non story.

[wyldwolf]

25. Katzenkavalier, that was a bit overdramatic.

Face it - Obama is going to get negative press.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[wyldwolf]

26. as has been pointed out in this thread already, this was not a smear

[Alexander]

27. No. It's yet another bullshit post by you attacking someone else.

On their MySpace friends, no less.

Gee, I don't like Murdoch or MySpace. Hence I have zero MySpace friends. I guess I can't ever run for office. :eyes:

[wyldwolf]

28. "If you post something true about my candidate I don't like, it is a smear" - Alexander

Guess KOS and MyDD are smearing Obama today, too. :rofl:

[Alexander]

30. Obama isn't my candidate. You never stop with distorting the truth.

On the other hand, legitimate criticism of Hillary is always considered by you and a select few others to be "lies", "smears" and what have you - you guys even fall over yourselves trying to break the DU rules first whenever anyone says anything remotely negative about St. Hillary.

No one here is buying what you're selling. Don't come crying to me about it.

[wyldwolf]

29. Washington Post "attacks" Obama!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/02/AR2007050201360.html

[Alexander]

34. This proves nothing, except that you incorrectly still think I support Obama.

Look! Carl Bernstein's writing a book critical of Hillary! It must be a smear, and filled with nothing but lies! :eyes:

[wyldwolf]

31. BAM! National Journal "smears" Obama!

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/05/obamas_myspace_1.html

[wyldwolf]

32. San Francisco Chronicle -- you guessed it - smears Obama!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/05/02/politics/p103735D33.DTL&type=politics

[Name removed]

33. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[wyldwolf]

38. Oh, NO! CBS News is now ATTACKING (I mean reporting) on Obama!

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/02/ap/politics/main2753879.shtml

[ronnykmarshall]

39. Yeah, NONE of the supporters of other candidates ....

have EVER attack Hillary on DU!

Why is just NEVER happens!

:eyes:

[endarkenment]

48. Attacks here on DU on Democratic candidates

should be issue oriented and not simply inane smears, such as this one.

[AZBlue]

59. "Hello, pot? This is kettle. You're black!"

You claim to be against smearing someone while you smear another candidate and all her supporters here on DU???? Are you effing kidding me??!?!?

[porque no]

35. Misleading at best.

I don't know who you are pulling for, so I won't get into that convoluted mess, but "losing" unofficial myspace "friends" amounts to a bag of shit.

[hoboken123]

36. Then how sad is his campaign?

That he has to resort to stealing someone's profile?

Especially after the individual sank his own time and money into helping Obama. Sadly telling.

[porque no]

37. Hardly.

I think it is pretty wise to have control over EVERYTHING. Leaving something to chance is what is risky and telling.

Smart move by the Obama campaign. If someone is a "friend" on one space, they would probably be a friend on the official one. I would have no problem with Obama throwing some campaign cash their way though, for the effort and help.

[hoboken123]

41. They were fine with it earlier...

...but now it's a problem.

Exactly how insanely micro-managing is it to take over an explicitly unofficial webpage? And the guy paid $10k out of his pocket to promote Obama. And then they shaft him.

[Scriptor Ignotus]

40. thanks for posting this

I just added myself as a friend to Obama's new official page.

Wait about 3 months. Obama will have 91% more friends than he had before he switched sites. However, it does sound like Obama's guys burned a bridge they had no need to burn. I really hope they make amends with the original creator...

[endarkenment]

43. They had no choice and tried to do it cooperatively.

All Obama's campaign wanted was to take control of the page. The refusal of the owner to cooperate was not a good move on his part.

[endarkenment]

42. What a misleading dishonest post. nt.

[wyldwolf]

45. how so?

[Nederland]

46. Not really

...assuming you understand MySpace. To a person who understands how that site works, the title is accurate and doesn't raise any alarms at all.

[endarkenment]

47. The post headline misrepresents what happened and why.

The Obama campaign took over control of the myspace Obama page. That is what happened and attempts to make a big deal out of it, or to mine this non-event for partisan political gain, are simply dishonest.

How about concentrating the partisan attacks on Democrats here to issues and positions rather than haircuts, lightbulbs, and myspace accounts?

[hoboken123]

54. Your post is no better

The Obama campaign took over control of the unofficial myspace Obama page.

[endarkenment]

55. It took over control of the barak obama page

transforming it from unoffcial to official, and for good reasons.

But exactly which Democratic candidate am I tossing irrelevant attacks at?

[hoboken123]

60. It took over a fan's unofficial page

And transformed it into the official. Not nearly the same as taking over a cybersquatter or someone masquerading as an official site.

Lousy thing to do to someone who's only crime seems to be trying to help Obama.



But exactly which Democratic candidate am I tossing irrelevant attacks at?

I'm not sure why you're addressing this to me.

[ecstatic]

77. Took over just the link (key word name)

He has a right to have use of his own name. I think that guy gets to continue his own page (if he likes) just that it won't pull up when someone types myspace.com/barackobama. I can't believe how petty this guy is. To say Obama lost his vote over this?

[mtnsnake]

73. Baloney. I'm an Obama fan and I don't find his post misleading or dishonest at all

As a matter of fact, I'm glad he pointed it out because it shows that even our favorite candidates aren't perfect all the time and they better straighten up in certain areas or they're going to be left behind.

The thread is legit.

[Nederland]

44. Boneheaded Move

The Obama campaign seriously screwed up here. They should have just paid the guy (or hired him) and kept the site humming. Now it's a story...

Dumb. Not a big mistake in the long run, but still dumb.

[Tellurian]

58. Yep, Another Humongous screw-up by Obama's campaign staff..

They screwed the little guy. This won't play well in Peoria or anywhere else for that matter in the US.

The complainers here haven't read the entire article at length. The conclusion drawn from a well balanced detail accounting of the sequence of events puts Joe Anthony in the catbird seat. The fellow is still bewildered by the whole ordeal. He feels blindsided by slicksters who screwed him out of three years of work by telling him "the campaign doesn't have any money to pay him." Then, accused him of looking for a Big Pay Day.

blog statement posted by Joe Anthony:

This is Joe Anthony.

This is not blackmail and I'm not a "squatter".

They wanted the profile and asked me to propose a fee, and indicated that Myspace was ok with this. I have no experience making such proposals and had no idea what to ask for.

I proposed a fee, and now they're accusing me of looking for a "big payday".

This is not blackmail. This is not me cashing in on the profile.

I do not believe that one person on that profile, who has personally witnessed the close personal attention I've dedicated to this community since 2004 would disagree with this.

By Janthony321 at Wed, 05/02/2007 -

blogger's opinion:

"Who's "Big Brother" now?"


Marketing companies who build profiles for movies, artists, products and campaigns charge hundreds of thousands of dollars -- and usually only build up to a few thousand friends.

If the campaign was asking Joe to get out and give up all ties to something he had built himself, and he was only asking for $49K max, then he was being more than reasonable.

The campaign would have raised a ton of money from those 160K people, and all the additional friends those would bring in over the coming months. They would have stayed permanently far ahead of all other campaigns on MySpace. Now they might be permanently behind.

But the worst mistake the campaign made was trying to smear Joe. That could come back to bite them, especially if the other campaigns pick up on this opportunity and get some surrogates talking about this "Big Brother" move by Obama.

When Obama heralded the "power of the individual" for the 1984 ad, it turned out it was actually a staffer of his own consultant.

Now, when a real individual produces something amazing, he steals it away from the guy. Pretty disappointing all around.

[Forkboy]

49. I'm glad we can count on you to relay this crucial news.

Those damn lefties,always attacking fellow dems!

Oh,wait...

[Colobo]

50. Only Hillarites think this is important

By the way, I joined Barack's new group. :)

[wyldwolf]

51. which is why dailyKOS, Mydd, CBS News, and techpresident reported it?

[Colobo]

52. Actually, yeah.

Your candidate has a lot of cheerleaders around.

[wyldwolf]

53. So... (LOL!) KOS and the crowd at MyDD are "Hillarites." O... K...

[IA_Seth]

56. Not quite..

I wouldn't caucus for Hillary...going back and forth right now but I like Obama..and I think it's news.

This isn't a smear, lighten the hell up. Its a story about interaction between a campaign and their grassroots/unofficial volunteers, and is a sign of the times. I think it's quite interesting.

And it doesn't really change my opinion of Obama (but perhaps his campaign).

[Hippo_Tron]

57. To be fair, I'm quite sure that Senator Obama doesn't have a clue that this is going on

Presidential candidates don't have the time to worry about what is happening with their myspace pages. Some low level staffer screwed up, period...

[hoboken123]

61. Odd then that Obama

Apparently just called the mySpace guy to discuss the situation.

[tammywammy]

63. I didn't read that

It was always Obama staffers/campaign that talked with him.

I really doubt any candidate knows what's going on with their myspace.com profiles.

[hoboken123]

66. And yet...

"I just received a phone call from Barack Obama himself."

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=159248288&blogID=260260883

[politicasista]

64. Wow, another Obama bashing thread

Sorry, but you're not going to make me vote for Hillary.

[Colobo]

65. Since the Rasmussen poll

the Hillarites have been on fire.

[Catchawave]

67. Has there been an official statement from the campaign yet?

That would help too.

I saw your bloggie thing thread, but Obama needs to personally nip this thing in the bud, and take personal responsiblilty.

:hi:

[Ethelk2044]

68. Kick

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post_group/ObamaHQ/CvSl#extended

[Catchawave]

70. Same blog post?

Sorry not following you :shrug:

[Colobo]

69. Why? His people are taking care of the situation

That's their job.

[Catchawave]

71. I'm a little behind tonight....

need a link to difuse this mess, from Obama. Thanks :hi:

P.S. no offense, this is probably an non story too, of course, you understand the mess these create :D

[Connie_Corleone]

72. The following link is an explanation from the Obama campaign

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post_group/ObamaHQ/CvSl

Obama himself also called the original MySpace page creator:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=159248288&blogID=260260883&MyToken=b4976efb-95f0-4a09-9210-34ba1914cc9e

[Colobo]

74. I still don't know what the true motives of Mr. Anthony are

[Capn Sunshine]

75. As I said elsewhere, thisis meaningless

I've never even heard of this MySpace page, and if you're implyiong that 100% of thos emyspace profiles are genuine, maybe you could pitch in on the penis enlargement pages too.:)

Seriously, if you think that those names won't sign up at Obama's website well, I'm glad you're working for Hill.

ps this ridiculous gouging at each other's candidates is just that. Ridiculous.
I thought you guys would have learned from '04, but you seem convinced you're doing good.

All you're doing is giving the Reds ammo.

[ecstatic]

76. WOW @ the "scandals" they dig up on Obama

Everything from parking tickets from 16 years ago, to being related to slave owners, to going to a militant black church, to wearing his suits like Iran's president (hints at being a Muslim sympathizer). This is ridiculous and has to stop!

[zulchzulu]

78. What a desperate, hack-kneed wackazoid story...

Gee, what will the MySpace peeps do....go to Facebook? Like whoa, it's like YouTube going to nest the MySpace friends and lure them into some new channel...

Another thing, why the hell does this Joe Anthony guy think he needs to get paid for something he started on his own without the official support of the Obama campaign? Last I heard, the primary season is over 8 months away...so basically, the job ain't frickin' done yet...

What hogwash...