Howard Dean revolutionized "meet ups" as away to target volunteers and to raise funds. How about using Friendster as well?
Have any fledgling democratic candidates yet attempted to use "friendster" to set up an on-line network of supporters?
Friendster could help fledgling candidates identify both volunteers and financial supporters by identifying previously unknown social connections. Here's how one
Boston Globe article described how Friendster can work:
By browsing through the thousands of profiles linked to by her friends, and by using Friendster's search engine, Garcia discovered that she is two degrees removed from comedian Margaret Cho and three degrees away from actor Thomas Lennon. She found old friends from summer camp, set up friends on dates, and helped plan a high school reunion through Friendster. "I'm a little bit addicted," she said.
Here's Wikipedia on Friendster:
Friendster (the name is a pun on Napster) is a social network website. Every person who signs up defines his or her gallery of friends. The website then integrates these galleries, allowing a user to search through a list of their friends, their friend's friends, and so on. The premise is that in this way, one can interact with and meet people who are always a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, and not a random, unknown person (such as may be found on instant messaging or IRC).
Friendster is based on the Circle of Friends technique for networking individuals in virtual communities and demonstrates the small world phenomenon.
Despite its widespread use in social and business networking, I have yet to see anyone use it for political networking. Were there any 2004 candidates who used Friendster as part of their political efforts?
I know one important project for Kossacks is getting a viable Democratic candidates in all 435 congressional districts. Perhaps a "friendster" strategy could help jump-start campaigns in the more marginal districts. Democratic candidates could set up volunteer and finance networks entirely through people they knew -- and the people who know the people they know -- using the friendster platform.
I personally do not use friendster, but I know many people who do who swear by it as a networking device. It seems to me that this is an untapped product for campaign use. Are there any friendster junkies out there who could opine more specifically on how the technology could be put to use by political campaigns?