Obama Outpacing McCain On Web By Miles

Obama Outpacing McCain On Web By Miles

Less than five months before The Big Day -- Nov. 4, 2008 -- national polls show John McCain and Barack Obama locked in a dead heat. The latest CNN poll has Obama at 49 and McCain at 46; the most recent Gallup poll shows Obama at 46 and McCain just a point away.

But on the Web, there's simply no contest: Obama easily trumps McCain.

Obama leads McCain on popular social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, as measured by sites such as TechPresident.com, a favorite of online political operatives, and the less-known but also valuable Compete.com. On MySpace, Obama leads McCain more than seven-fold; Obama lists 390,279 friends to McCain's 53,259. The gap is almost similar on Facebook. Obama supporters number at 928,905 while McCain's clock in at 139,749. And on YouTube, it's almost as if Obama and McCain operate in two separate layers of the atmosphere. McCain's channel, which has posted 219 videos, has been viewed a little over 4 million times. Obama's channel, which has posted 1,102 videos, has been viewed 51.1 million times.

The Web is like a busy, massive, maze-like grocery store, and Obama has been more effective than McCain in ensuring that he's on various aisle, trying to attract specific demographic groups. Obama was the first candidate, Democratic or Republican, to have a profile on BlackPlanet.com, MiGente.com and AsianAve.com, popular social networking sites in the black, Latino and Asian communities, and was also the first to have a profile on On Eons.com, the Facebook for Baby Boomers. Obama's profile on Eons lists 290 friends. McCain, meanwhile, lists 3. This kind of online outreach has been instrumental in Obama's ability to raise millions online in the past few months -- something McCain hasn't matched.

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