At the start of 2008, online social networking site MySpace invited its US community to participate in the first MySpace
Presidential Primary. The ballot will was hosted on the community's
Impact Channel, just prior to the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primaries.
Barack Obama for the Democratic party and Ron Paul of the Republican party candidate were the chosen presidential candidates by the
MySpace community ahead of the 2008 general election.
Statisitcs released with a
press release state the key findings from the MySpace Presidential Primary as:
- Democratic respondents selected Barack Obama, who led with 46% of the vote, followed by Hillary Clinton (31% of the vote) and John Edwards (8% of the vote)
- Republican respondents selected Ron Paul, who led with 37% of the vote, followed by Rudy Giuliani (18% of the vote) and Mike Huckabee (16% of the vote)
- 83% of respondents plan to vote in the 2008 primary
- 91% of respondents plan to vote in the general election
- The Economy/Jobs, the War in Iraq and Health Care were the most important issues to respondents
Over 150,000 MySpace users casted their vote in the online community site's Presidential Primary. Jeff Berman, the Senior Vice President of Public Affairs for MySpace said, "The MySpace Generation has spoken and we?re eager to see how the candidates will court this important voting demographic."
A similar, but perhaps less influential poll was taken at a social networking site for pets,
PawsConnect.com. With the help of their owners, hundreds of pets
elected Hilary Clinton as their President of choice.