Facebook Has a New Face

As 2007 wound down, and the political frenzy leading up to the Presidential primaries ramped up, Facebook, the social networking site, entered into a marketing deal with ABC News.


In the past few weeks, my Facebook news feed (a slightly Big Brother-ish list of recent changes to friends' profiles) has featured items like, "6 of your friends participated in the debate, _________." One of the debates was the role faith should play in a President's governing; others looked at gender issues.

Another recent debate, with an teaser in the sidebar of my Facebook homepage, discussed the war in Iraq.
Has Facebook come to represent more than shallow social interactions that remove most of the social? Could this ubiquitous website be the future, or a t least the foundations for the future, of political organizing? I think so.

See, every politician running for president, senator, house rep , city council, alderman, whatever, is trying to figure out how to improve their political organizing. The two parties are at a crossroads: their bases are splintering (Democrats are split on many issues; Republicans are in-fighting, as each group attempts to become the group of the party), and the voting base is aging. Staunch, pro-union Democrats (mainstays of the industrial and farming Midwestern states) are great, but I think the Democratic party is coming to terms with the fact that they aren't really the party of unions any more - when was the last time you heard about a new labor law in this Blue congress?

No, the group Democrats want is the new, liberal base that is currently between 18 and 30 right now. I mean, if my generation is recruited into this party, we will be voting for at least 20 more national election cycles. So it makes sense to target one of the biggest phenomena in this demographic.

For instance, the new debates program provides an opportunity to make issues relevant; I guarantee that the person who argues a point more strongly believes in it. It's a great way to get rid of ambivalence.

But there's more. Facebook is an amazingly visually appealing site. Even ads look integrated into the page. And the prior mentioned News Feed now offers "news feed stories" that are actually sponsored links. Such as this one:

Facebook is expanding its advertising and marketing models. As they expand, and offer more opportunities for embedded commercial content, it would be behoove the political parties to take advantage of this. I feel the beginnings of a surge of action in my generation, and when it explodes, the parties better be there.