Facebook hosted an online, live townhall meeting with USA president Obama in Palo Alto headquarters. This event was very important for both Facebook and Obama. From the day he was elected, presidents poll results indicated decline. For the re-election campaign the utilization of Facebook platform is a significant move as it features over 155 million users in USA with 62% under the age 35. Even people in my network who devotedly supported “Obama for Change” campaign are far from the excitement in 2008.
Although it was not covered in the video published, Zuckenberg greeted the USA president Obama, referring to 19 million followers on his Facebook page, “Welcome home president”. The opening speech of the president explains the rationale of this meeting very well:
The main reason we wanted to do this is, first of all, because more and more people, especially young people, are getting their information through different media. And obviously what all of you have built together is helping to revolutionize how people get information, how they process information, how they’re connecting with each other.
And historically, part of what makes for a healthy democracy, what is good politics, is when you’ve got citizens who are informed, who are engaged. And what Facebookallows us to do is make sure this isn’t just a one-way conversation; makes sure that not only am I speaking to you but you’re also speaking back and we’re in a conversation, were in a dialogue.
And historically, part of what makes for a healthy democracy, what is good politics, is when you’ve got citizens who are informed, who are engaged. And what Facebookallows us to do is make sure this isn’t just a one-way conversation; makes sure that not only am I speaking to you but you’re also speaking back and we’re in a conversation, were in a dialogue.
And really Obama continued with a warm tone to address questions ranging from economy to immigration, education, health care, partly picked from the web, partly from the Facebook employees among the crowd.
From Facebook’s perspective, the largest social network did the first move hosting this dialogue to bridge the internet with the world of politics, definitely adding to its brand value. Different than the conventional media, Facebook audience interacted over the web and become a contributor of this town-hall. Thinking of internet as a factor democratizing the world (literally), social networks such as Facebook, abstracting and virtualizing our identity promise a great potential. Just to give an idea, think of virtualizing elections or referendums, where people can very efficiently represent themselves with an e-government social network infrastructure.
This is a new era. Just like the corporate firms are one step closer to their customers with the social media, the politicians are reaching their voters through Facebook, Twitter, Youtube much faster. As a leader very well connected to the social media, we will see if Obama can prevail again in the 2012 elections adding new “friends”.
– this post has been published in dijitolog
