January 16, 2008
You can Vote in the (Virtual) Primary Today
The application shows the national results, but it also shows the winner within your location network as well as the issues that facebook users in your area and across the US consider to be the most important. Nationally the environment is number one, with health care close behind, followed by the Iraq War, Education, and Jobs & Economy.
Currently Barack Obama is in the lead with 43% and Ron Paul is in the Republican lead with 5%, but John Edwards is number one in Topeka, Kansas with 44%. Why is that important? Well... it isn't really. Its just super cool that I know what my local network of people think. And you can too! Health care, the Iraq War, and Education are the top threes in my neck of the woods. Hey, its Kansas... guess we haven't figured out that whole global warming thing yet.
You can share with your friends and compare who supports whom as well as see what your top issues are. Who knows, perhaps you have a kinship with your best friend in the third grade when it comes to health care. Or maybe you and your old boss support the same candidate and you never knew.
"Since this contest began a week ago, a more modest 20,000 users have participated, partly because the primary was not designed or promoted by Facebook itself."
Thus... I promote it here.
This comes months after MySpace began hosting their own candidate forum with MTV where users online and IRL could ask questions about issues that conern us most. The League hopped to it and Facebook had their first ever partnership with ABC for the ABC/Facebook Presidential Double Header.
The LA Times finishes well by saying we are more on the cutting edge than those silly ol talking heads. Turns out there is a new era of politics now that our generation has gotten our computers involved.
"The old etiquette of keeping your vote to yourself may be out the window along with other aging notions of privacy. Facebook users who vote in the League of Young Voters primary get a shining gold badge proclaiming not just who they voted for, but why.
If taking stock of whom your friends are voting for in order to make your own decision doesn't seem like the soul of civic responsibility, consider the alternative. For a long time now, much of our political input has come from talking heads and million-dollar TV commercials.
Facebook and MySpace may not exactly be the town center where the polis gather to kick around issues. But it's not a bad start.
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