Interesting article in the Times recently on how Barack Obama harnessed the power of the internet in his campaign.
My.Barack.Obama seems to me icky, as did the e-mail we all got from him ("him") before his Grant Park acceptance speech. But maybe that's because I'm a meatspace luddite (not to mention because I have not experienced the power - the baraka! - of his virtual world to enhance my real world through new friends and the like), and because virtual things are still on probation for me. Don't they realize it's just a campaign staffer, and that the identical thing was sent to 10 million others, and see the "contribute" button still at the bottom? But they're not dumb, they're past irony. Of course it's a campaign staffer, etc. But it's real. Partly because the virtual contact is part of their experience of real friendship, too...
Now is it mind control? Is it the psychology of crowds? Does it subvert by making an end-run around existing and publicly accountable forms of communication, etc.?
