There is terrific article in today's Politico on the impact of the Internet on the 2008 election written by Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry of Personal Democracy Forum entitled The Web: 2008's Winning Ticket. This is a must read for online political operatives.

The statistics of web coverage each candidate received especially in terms of web video tells the tale and is one major indicator of Obama's margin of victory. Obama posted 1,822 videos to YouTube to McCain's 330 and there were 104,454 videos mentioning Obama across 200 platforms to McCain's 64,092. Web surfers spent 14.6 million hours watching Obama videos online to 488,000 hours for McCain. And, most interesting, is that the cost of equivalent 30 second spot TV buys for this viewership is reported to be $46.9 million for Obama to $1.5 million for McCain. That is an incredible advantage for Obama in a race where he already had a money edge on McCain.

The lesson for all politicians out there is that they must use online video in the future to cost effectively attract eyeballs. They certainly won't have the money to purchase the equivalent amount of TV. Now, other politicians might not be as compelling as Obama but there is little doubt that elections will be won or lost in the future based on who received more traction online.

Neil Hare,
Global Vision Communications