People are still debating why Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election. It could be that he was the most qualified American citizen for the job. It could be that the country’s desperation for change outweighed everything else. It could be that he had a sick amount of cash at his disposal. Whatever the reason, one thing is crystal clear: Barack Obama and the Democrats leveraged technology like never before. They brilliantly tapped into text-messaging, e-mail, and social networking to build a base, raise money and spread ‘brand’ awareness.

In the midst of a tech revolution, it was only a matter of time for someone to take social networking beyond searching for EX-girlfriends.

Now that the election is over and the goal of an Obama White House has been met, what will happen to the president-elect’s online presence?

I’d like to hear your thoughts. Here are a few options to get you started. Do you think…

- Obama supporters will abandon their profile pages and unsubscribe from blogs.

- Obama supporters should expect their accounts to be blitzed with messages from future Dem candidates.

- Obama supporters will continue regular use of these sites. They will discuss meaningful issues, continue to donate money, and become the very agents of change they wished for.

Another thing to think about is how Obama will use technology when he is living on Pennsylvania Avenue. Will his State of the Union addresses break ratings records because supporters get a reminder on their iPhone app? Will the president’s administration use this same technology to continue two-way dialogue? We sure hope so. We now open the floor to you…

Sarah Palin is the first woman ever to run on the U.S. Republican party presidential ticket. If Americans elect John McCain on November 4, Mrs. Palin will be the first female Vice President of the United States.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, both BlogPulse and Google Trends show more - a lot more - discussion in the blogosphere about Palin than about either Obama or McCain (see charts after the jump).

But what are the underlying causes for all the Palin talk? Why the fuss?

Is it because blogs may actually be responsible for John McCain’s selection of Palin as his running mate?

Is it because Palin came seemingly out of nowhere to get picked ahead of several other contenders?

Or is it just because she’s a woman? read more

With a US Presidential Election this fall, along with 1/3rd of the Senate up for re-election, and the entire House of Representatives, could 2008 truly be the year of the political blogger?

The New York Times certainly thinks so:

Beginning Monday, hundreds of bloggers will descend on Denver to see Barack Obama accept his party’s nomination. Next week, hundreds more will travel to St. Paul to witness John McCain’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. But now these online partisans, many of whom are self-financed, must contend with all the logistical and financial hurdles just to get there — not to mention the party politics happening behind the scenes.

This year, both parties understand the need to have greater numbers of bloggers attend. While many Americans may watch only prime-time television broadcasts of the convention speeches, party officials also recognize the ability of bloggers to deliver minute-by-minute coverage of each day’s events to a niche online audience.

To put this into perspective, the 2004 DNC in Boston credentialed only around twelve bloggers. This year, hundreds of bloggers have been credentialed at both convention. The micro-coverage from the smaller blogs and in-depth coverage provided by the larger blogs is going to elevate the artform of political blogging to a whole new level.

I can’t wait to watch..

Much was made of the Obama campaign’s plan to release the name of their VP nominee via text message before the mainstream media published the message.

That’s why, of course, I was reading about the nomination of Joe Biden as Obama’s Vice Presidential candidate on CNN and nytimes.com long before the text message was sent out from the Obama campaign at 3:00am.

The Washington Post reports the issue:

It was the text message read round the country — for those who got it.

Many of those who signed up to receive a text alerting them of Sen. Barack Obama’s vice presidential selection had to wait minutes, if not hours, to learn that Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. was the pick. The problem was most likely a scaling issue, mobile experts said, with carriers’ messaging systems overwhelmed by the number of people receiving the text.

“It was one message that had to reach any number of devices,” said Stephanie Vinge-Walsh of Sprint Nextel. She added that traffic on Sprint’s short code for the Obama campaign — 62262, which spells O-B-A-M-A on cellphone keypads — rose more than 250 percent within an hour of the announcement.

The message was sent out at 3am, at least 5-6 hours after the mainstream media had already published the message. And - 2 days later - I’m still waiting on my message to arrive….