techPresident - The Battle to Control Obama's Myspace - Comments

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Cristiano — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:52:19 -0400

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Anyone changing their minds

mac11 — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:20:03 -0400

Anyone changing their minds over Obama over this episode is overreacting (or perhaps a troll who really supports another candidate).

First of all, Obama himself had nothing to do with it. Even if you think his people screwed up, مسجات you should still give him a chance to try to rectify the situation.

Secondly, we don't know all of the information or the facts, so you are jumping to conclusions.

Third, choosing a candidate based on how they chose who runs their Myspace profile is just about the most random way to pick a candidate possible.

thanks for

EGS — Fri, 23 May 2008 10:43:32 -0400

thanks for iformation...
betsson

myspace for Obama

homeboy — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 02:12:18 -0500

"I feel for Joe. I know what it's like to work on Myspace around the clock. You stay up late, consume lots of caffeine, approve friends & comments and look for the latest news to post. On top of all that I am always looking for ways to spread the word, help raise money, and expand the community. It definetly kills your social life."

I couldn't agree more. I didn't realize how much effort individuals put into getting their pick in candidates into office until I became one of those people myself. I applaud your efforts into Hillary, but for me, I'll stick with Barack Obama. After all, he's my homeboy.

as messy as this was, I still believe Joe is back at it and in full force just the same.

Of Course Joe Deserves Compensation

aljonton5 — Wed, 09 May 2007 12:24:19 -0400

Why does a political campaign need money? Other than for media buys, it also needs to pay people who are employed by the campaign serving them, as well as consultants and other companies that support the campaign. Joe is supporting the campaign and if they offered to pay him for the site, he has no reason to refuse.

Just because some of the readers of this blog put their time and energy into volunteering for Obama's campaign doesn't mean that others who put their time and energy into it do not deserve compensation when requested to turn something over. Should hotel operators who support Obama not charge for the rooms since they are supporters? If you believe Joe "needs to shut up", that's where the fallacious argument extends, to people not being compensated for their time on political campaigns. Those employed by Obama trying to get the site, well, they are probably getting paid.

As for the argument "that's Obama's site", have you ever tried to get a username on a website and then it was taken, so you had to add numbers to your user name or use a close proximity to what you wanted? That's what just happened on myspace. And guess what? The rest of the world has to deal with the fact that sometimes they can't get their preferred name/website/whatever else on the internet, since it's a free place. Obama should just be happy that Joe wasn't using it as a parody site, but instead to support the campaign. And if he wants the site in tact, as it is, then he should pay for it. Otherwise, it should just be deleted and Obama can start from scratch. THATS fairness.

Volunteer from h*ll

ebgill — Wed, 09 May 2007 08:38:07 -0400

I think that Joe is the worst kind of volunteer a campaign can have. He goes and does something and gets lots of attention and press. Then he uses his power to make demands. When his demands are not met, he uses the situation to bad mouth the candidate. The Obama campaign was correct in cutting him loose. He should go work for the other side because that was what he was doing all along.

Mishandling social media

mnprogressive — Sat, 05 May 2007 23:25:40 -0400

It's true that there may be more to this story than what's reported here. However, from what I've read so far, what a shame. Seems like this could have been resolved in a much more amicable manner.

First, I think the most obvious issue (thusfar) is that the Obama campaign was offered 160k supporters ahead--that's in the pocket, not promised--AND the barkaobama MySpace URL for $40,000. If I were a donor to the Obama campaign, I'd be pissed that the campaign DIDN'T take this offer. That's a quarter a contact, plus the URL. As another commenter said, this is DIRT cheap, especially for access to folks that sought out the campaign, not the other way around.

Secondly, in my mind, the campaign lost the ability to claim that the volunteer was extorting them when the campaign started making requests about what kinds of content to put on the site.

But what's worst is the chilling effect this could have on other efforts of Obama fans to set up social networking sites. Who will go to the trouble to create an Obama MySpace fan page now, or any other social networking site? The Obama campaign really fumbled some of the central ideas around using social media to organize. They alienated and slandered a key activist, and they looked like bullies doing it. They made the campaign look like a top-down, astroturf organization that quashes genuine, organic support from the grassroots. Campaigns using social media to organize have to expect to give up some control. You can't buy better advertising than word of mouth of an evangelizing supporter, but you also can't control it. In fact, you shouldn't try to control it, unless a supporter does something crazy that the campaign needs to distance itself from (which doesn't seem like happened here). This is what you get.

This doesn't reflect badly on Obama personally, in my book, but it does reflect badly on his campaign team, which in turn is a reflection on electability. Even the most talented politician can't compensate for bad campaign staffwork, and that's what this seems to be. Disappointing stuff.

For the People

M Simon — Fri, 04 May 2007 15:44:56 -0400

Obama was just practicing the socialism he preaches.

For the people.

Ditto!

beckweth — Fri, 04 May 2007 09:11:04 -0400

Ditto!

obama offer

beckweth — Fri, 04 May 2007 09:07:58 -0400

The obama group offered joe a fee and then accused him of being in it for the money. What a set-up.
Good thing it happened - out there for all to see.

WOW...

BIG E — Fri, 04 May 2007 00:37:42 -0400

Joe, your name along with Mr. Obama’s will be talked about in college classes and legal referrals long after you both are gone. This is a paradigm shift the will effect a lot of things to come. But the cold hard fact is Mr. Obama’s shot for the presidency is gone. I’m sure that know-one meant for this to happen and that there wasn’t any ill intent for the fall out, but it’s over. “Rookie mistakes” as it was referred to earlier, that’s all it was, but we are referring to the most powerful and sought after office in the world there is no room for these minor league type of mistakes. Joe… Barack my hat’s off to you both, I feel that you’re talented and have honorable intentions. Good luck to your future endeavors and keep fighting the fight for a better tomorrow

friend of myspace.com/barackobama

crosbyaustin — Thu, 03 May 2007 23:21:09 -0400

Joe's page got me to sign up on my.barackobama.com which in turn got me to donate money to the campaign. Joe's page also helped me access other sites were i bought a shirt supporting Barack in '08. I know for a fact that there are 160,000 people out there just like me. I think that Joe's bid of $48K was too low. I don't know what the Barack Obama staff was expecting. I was receiving bulletins all the time with important info. I stayed up to watch Barack on Leno because I was informed of his appearance through Joe's "unofficial" page. I feel for Joe and hope that this story still has a chance for a happy ending.

Are you serious?

danimaret — Thu, 03 May 2007 20:05:04 -0400

This Joe guy is such an attention seeker! How would we look at Mother Teressa if she went and helped all those people and then was like "Ok, were's my fifteen minutes?" Yeah, he did a great job 'getting all those supporters' except, Obama is a pretty cool guy, and can do that on his own. This may make me sound incredibly unintelligent, but I thought that was Obama's Myspace page. Until I saw the post from the real Obama people. He set the page up to look like they were the ones running it. I hate to see the little guy get the shaft but he should've set himself up better for success, instead of what happened to him. (By the way, in my opinion, him not being able to eat or sleep because of this is a bit melodramatic)

What I want to know...

Abbie — Thu, 03 May 2007 19:43:10 -0400

...is what Joe Anthony's going to have to pay for control of this MySpace page: www.myspace.com/joeanthony

Seriously, thank you Joe for your work. When I realized I could support Obama by putting his picture on my "top 8" friends I actually shopped around and looked at all the Obama sites. Yours was great! And even though I thought it was official at the time, I wasn't disappointed when I found out that it wasn't. The issue isn't about control, it's about the MESSAGE. I believe in Obama's message and I was proud to show everyone who visited my page that I did.

Now that there's a big question mark in my "top 8," I'm hoping people will be curious and click there to see what's going on. I'm glad I did.

Because now I know who to thank. (Thanks.)

The basics...

LurkingVariable — Thu, 03 May 2007 18:02:01 -0400

Just a few observations:

- For those that say Mr. Anthony made that much progress only because of OB's name, that is exactly what 'professional consultants' would be paid to do. And it's exactly what Mr. Anthony was doing for free out of goodwill to the Obama camp. If his hard work earned him a little respect and recognition along the way, then what is wrong with that?

- For those that say the OB campaign had to do it to maintain control, perhaps you missed the part of the story that says that OB's staff had the security credentials to directly edit the site. How much more control do you need?

- If the valuation that OB's staff asked Mr. Anthony to come up with was too high, they should have at least counter-offered whatever they thought was a reasonable amount to compensate him for taking his "baby" plus all the work that had directly asked him to do. Pulling the rug out from under a faithful supporter without first trying to come to terms was poor form and that's all there is to it.

- As a consultant, I can assure you that $49K was a pretty reasonable price for those results.

- Also as a consultant, I can tell you that if I were OB I would be getting on the horn post haste to talk to Mr. Anthony and saying "Hey, we messed up on this end and I'm sorry. I'd like to offer you $10K for the results you've already delivered to us and I'd like to ask you to do some ongoing contract consulting for us." OB happy + Mr. A happy + MySpace happy = story go poof. That advice is free, OB camp.

The Battle to Control Obama's Myspace

Micah L. Sifry — Tue, 01 May 2007 23:15:33 -0400

In November 2004, Joe Anthony, a paralegal living in Los Angeles, started a unofficial fan page for then-newly-elected Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) on MySpace.com. Inspired by Obama's keynote address at that summer's Democratic convention, Anthony had never been politically active before. "I was just blown away," he told me. He put time into the site every day, answering emails from people wanting to "friend" the page, pointing them to voter registration information, and, once Obama threw his hat into the ring, telling them where to find out more detailed positions of the candidate.

By the time of Obama's official campaign announcement in late January, Anthony's Obama profile--which had the valuable url of myspace.com/barackobama--already had more than 30,000 friends, well more than the other contenders. Over the following weeks, it continued to grow at a rapid pace, generating lots of headlines about Obama winning the "MySpace primary." Yesterday, the profile had just over 160,000 friends. Today, that url has only about 12,000. And it's under new ownership. Joe Anthony, one of the super volunteers of the Connected Age, has lost control of the page he started to the professionals on Obama's staff. How all this happened is a complicated tale that is still unfolding, and none of the parties involved--Anthony, the Obama online team, and the MySpace political operation--emerge from this story unscathed.