While I was a student intern working for the Al Franken campaign, I had became aware of how important our web site was as a place where potential supporters could become active participants in the Al Franken campaign. The web site has been significantly improved upon since I first became aware of it.
Some of the site's current features than enable citizen participation are: a "Contribute" tab that takes you to a secure online donation page, an "Action" tab that leads you to a variety of opportunities to become involved ie. a Join Team Franken sign up page, Host a House Party, as well as a link to an interactive "Volunteer Center" that informs you where and when there is a need for your active participation in your neighborhood. There is also a "Get Out the Vote" sign-up that will hook you up to the Obama campaign if you want.
What I found particularly interesting was that, at the time I was working in the campaign office, we relied upon a giant packet of information that held all of the election issues. They finally uploaded that guide to the site. This move has not only made this information more accessible to anyone who has an interest on Al's position on a given issue, but also features an option that allows you to forward, by E-Mail, this information to someone who you think would be interested in it as well. The "Event" tab leads the potential supporter to a section that permits the viewing of past and future Al Franken events held throughout the State. If you wish, there is a feature that enables you to Flickr or start a blog about the event. They have also added a Podcast feature so you can subscribe to these online.
Also, what I believe to be one of the most interesting online community aspects of the Al Franken site is the ability to add Al to your Myspace, Facebook, and Eons friend listings. There is also the Blog section where some of the senior team members write about happenings from the campaign trail. You can link these blogs to a number of other blog sites you may belong to including Digg, Delicious, Furl, Newsvine, Reddit, Sphereit, Technorati, Yahoo, Magnolia, and Stumble Upon.
As you can probably tell, I am quite impressed with this site and its improvements over time. http://www.alfranken.com/
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I have also noticed that some candidate web sites have become more interactive and collaborative. You can create your own your My.BarackObama.com account on Barack Obama's web site and then create your own fundraising page which "will put the financial future of this campaign in your hands. You set your own goal, you do the outreach, and you get the credit for the results." The personalized options also allow you to blog and upload photo. Like on Franken site, you can find links to Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, and a dozen other services in the section titled Obama Everywhere.
After a quick glance at John McCain's site I found very few similar features.
I agree with Stacey. The Dems have done a much better job with their websites, imo. More interactive, in general, and as Stacey pointed out - more personalized (or able to be personalize). I'm guessing more attractive to the youth vote (I'm too old to know for sure) and the tech-savvy.
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