techPresident - BarackSpace: What's Next For Joe Anthony? [UPDATE] - Comments

How Conflict Arises

John S James — Sat, 05 May 2007 22:30:49 -0400

This unnecessary mess could and probably will be a textbook example of how conflict can start when it's clearly not in the interest of any of the parties.

The key mistake seems to have been that someone in the Obama staff decided to save money and just take the barakobama name on MySpace, apparently by analogy with laws that would probably allow the taking of a domain name by a trademark owner. Garden-variety business hardball -- and a big mistake in this case. When you need public support, and someone has done so much for you, and has managed the growth of a group with 150,000 self-identified "friends," you don't treat him like that.

The big issue for the future is how a public figure (who usually must control his, her, or its public identity) relates to a truly independent fan or allies club that became very successful on its own initiative -- often thanks in large part to the lack of official sponsorship or control. While some of the answer is obvious (clear attribution, good communication), this is largely an unsolved problem that has become more prominent in a hurry with the growing influence of online communities.

The venom on some of the comments on the earlier post, and the striking lack of group consensus, is another project entirely. Clearly many people are wound up tight about different things. Let's go there some day, but not now.

What are the facts?

threevalued — Fri, 04 May 2007 18:19:07 -0400

Can some one answer the following questions:

1. Was anything other than the use of the URL "myspace/barackobama"
given to the campaign?

2. If so, how much content; and how much of the latter was provided by Joe rather than the campaign? (I realize there are borderline cases in which he would have decided how to use materials provided by the campaign.)

Peter Woodruff
Supporting Obama '08

You know what I took away from all this?

MarkS — Fri, 04 May 2007 17:31:39 -0400

How absolutely scary zealot supporters are. Rather shows everything wrong with our inability to have debate or discussion in politics or society these days.

Anyone that questioned the Obama camp in the blogs at http://www.barrackobama.com were told a variety of nicities, including:

"Take a hike. You were never here to begin with. Not gonna miss you. Go bother someone else." - RAH

"Go on John - we don't need people who cave to pressure and hype." (referring to someone taken aback by the attacks) - PASBO

"You can leave...Obama doesn't need you..You was never a supporter anyway if this is enough to lose your support...The good senator doesn't need your support nor your money... " - Maria

A rather special one:
"GO BACK TO THE SWAMP ANTHONY OR HIS FRIENDS OR EDWARDS OR HILLARY SUPPORTERS WE KNOW WHAT YOUR AFTER AND IT AIN'T THE TRUTH. YOUR HERE TRYING TO USE BARACK AND "HIS' FAME TO GET AHEAD.. GET A LIFE OF "YOUR" OWN OR YOUR HERE TO PUT BARACK DOWN AND WE AREN'T "BUYING" IT " - Daniella Clark

"Thanks for the clarification Joe. This guy Joe Anthony is a real loser. Go Obama!!!!! " - alex

Now, I can see arguments saying that they felt that the Obama campaign (or MySpace) did nothing wrong, but the amount of personal vitriol being thrown around there is stunning.

It looked a lot like the same trolls (only now from the left) you find on far right political sites. Attack the person. Attack anything but a discussion of the issue.

I had rather expected a different type of person and abilty for debate from followers of someone like Obama.

At least I was only told to "Go get a life."

Ah well. This is what it is. Politics.

Now for a 10 day road trip!

Here are the MySpace URL's

stevegarfield — Fri, 04 May 2007 13:55:11 -0400

I just went over to MySpace to take a look at Joe's page.

Here's what I found:

Joe Anthony
http://www.myspace.com/skyscrapernationalpark

Thursday, May 03, 2007

The old profile is back in my control.

Myspace has returned access to the profile to me.

This doesn't make up for what happened, and I'm unsure of how I'll proceed from here with this blank profile of 150,000 people. I hope you'll all help me decide.

At this point, maybe it would be best to delete it and move on.

1:32 AM - 51 Comments - 83 Kudos

Steve Garfield
http://stevegarfield.com

clarication

Minger — Fri, 04 May 2007 12:28:26 -0400

Could you clarify what URL is for Joe Anthony to donate?

The MySpace Veep mentioned a Solomonic solution that seems to be outside experience of the typical MySpace user. Has Joe Anthony retained some kind of control over the URL or the friends? When I browse the profile, I see "Official" Barack Obama MySpace profile, which implies the campaign controls it completely now.

Edit: nevermind, I understand now. MySpace replicated the profile: one copy with the barackobama URL went to the campaign, and one copy with the friends and otherwise blank, with the original friendID, went to Joe Anthony. Tis truly a Solomonic solution by MySpace.

The economic value of a blank profile with 150k friends is surely worth a few $K.

http://minger.net

BarackSpace: What's Next For Joe Anthony? [UPDATE]

Micah L. Sifry — Fri, 04 May 2007 11:44:34 -0400

The dust is starting to settle on Obama's MySpace Mess. For those people who imagined that Joe Anthony might turn to the courts and sue the Obama campaign for taking control of a community space that he spent two-and-a-half years and thousands of hours nurturing, that move is fortunately for all concerned not in the cards.