Facebook Changing Politics...?

Is facebook going to revolutionize the face of politics in the United States?

I doubt it. All the side-bar facebook advertisements with politicians' faces on them in the world wouldn't sway me to vote one way or the other. For me, it's about fundamental beliefs and provocations...what their face looks like doesn't matter to me. I've long heard that the younger, college-age generation has the most power to sway elections. Why? Well, we can organize in mass to vote, we're more likely to want to vote because we believe it will make a difference, and our demographic has special voting habits (tendencies) that can exploit one party or the other.

In South Korea many politicians use Web 2.0 services, namely blogs, to help get their campaign and image out to the public. For that society, such a technique has a measurable impact. I believe that it's yet to be proven that political blogs have an impact here in the US.

As far as making other impacts goes, these two teens were able to raise several hundred thousand dollars for their campaign to support Darfur. Being invited to Capital Hill to speak definitely implies that your social networking efforts have had an impact on politics. However large or small, you've done something.

Web 2.0 efforts have the ability to revolution specific causes, and have an even greater chance of getting a huge outpouring of participation when the day comes when US citizens can vote in elections online. In my nine-thirty post, I discuss the pros and cons regarding online voting. It's something that I think the US should do. With current Web 2.0 technologies, a non-biased facebook ad encouraging me to vote would do a great job of reminding to perform my civic duty. By eliminating the need to physically travel someplace to vote, apathy will no longer be an excuse for political inactivism.