Impact of MySpace on Presidential Election

MySpace is joining in on the political fun of the 2008 presidential election with the Impact channel.

The New York Times describes it as, "an online version of a town square, a collection of links to political MySpace pages that will make it easier for the site's 60 million American users per month -- many of them from the traditionally elusive and apathetic youth demographic -- to peruse the personal MySpace pages of, so far, 10 presidential candidates," (see The Future President, on Your Friends List).

Here users will find candidate blogs, videos, photos, and links. They can even add candidates to their friends list. The Impact channel will provide voter registration tools and an easy payment method for campaign contributions. MySpace hopes that they will be able to play a strong role in online campaign strategies by "reaching people who are historically not interested in voting," according to MySpace founder Tom Anderson.

With these efforts and others, like TechPresident.com, the United States public will be able to follow the candidates and the election in brand new ways.

On the flip side, candidates are readily building Internet campaign strategies as a means of reaching young voters.

All that's left now is to see how it is received. Do users want politicians on their friends list and "digital yard signs" on their sites, or will this be a case of the parent trying unsuccessfully to portray cool.