MySpace, a place for friends (and presidential hopefuls)

Following in YouTube's footsteps, MySpace has created a page dedicated to aggregating the official profiles of those US presidential hopefuls that have embraced the social networking site. MySpace Impact is dubbed as 'a place to make a difference', and along with linking to all of the featured candidates, also ties into the site's voter recruitment drive, 'Declare Yourself', which was launched late last year.

Political strategists clearly see social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube, as a way to combat voter apathy -- particular amongst the younger demographic -- and connect directly with voters.

An idea which MySpace is equally keen to promote:

Tom Anderson [MySpace founder] said, "MySpace has a method of reaching people who are historically not interested in voting” and may not read newspapers or watch news on television. He added: "A MySpace profile could excite their interest in ways they are used to. In the same way they learn about their friends, they could learn about a candidate."

Candidates will also be able to fund raise directly through the site, and so will their supporters:

...the site will start a one-click payment function to help contenders solicit campaign contributions. This online tool will appear on each candidate’s official MySpace page, and can be easily dragged onto a user’s own page. And from there it can be dragged to a user’s friend’s page, theoretically as easily as MySpace members now swap songs by their favorite bands...

Related post: YouTube on the campaign trail.

Also browse my Politics 2.0 category.