If you were online in the early 1990s, then today’s New York Times story on MySpace‘s entry into politics will seem familiar. Back then, Prodigy users couldn’t send e-mail to friends on America Online, who in turn were walled off from folks on CompuServe. We were still a few years away from the Internet being expanded so that all online services — and their customers — could talk to each other.
Well, here we go again. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain are just a few of the presidential candidates who have deep, useful Web sites. But apparently that’s no longer enough. Now candidates have to have separate sites on MySpace and Facebook. Up next: Second Life, an alternate-reality site explained last summer by Camille Dodero, then of the Boston Phoenix, now of the Village Voice.
At least MySpace and Facebook are free — it’s not like having to pay monthly subscription fees to Prodigy, AOL and CompuServe in order to stay in touch with all of your online friends. (Not that anyone could actually afford to do that.) But it strikes me that politicians, by setting up shop on such social-networking sites, are moving backwards. The interactivity of the Web is being broken up into chunks. Content on MySpace and Facebook can’t even be Googled. You’ve got to register and log on to each site if you want to keep up.
Here is Obama’s MySpace site; here is his Facebook site. (You can access the MySpace page without an account, although you won’t be able to do anything but look. To view the Facebook page you’ll have to register.) Any reason these couldn’t be integrated into his main site? Of course not. And I honestly don’t think it’s me who’s being the Luddite here. I remember how frustrating the online world could be before everyone was connected. Why are we moving back to the bad old days?
A few months ago Lisa Williams got me to sign up for yet another social-networking site, LinkedIn, which I guess is supposed to be like a Facebook for grownups. I do want to explore it when I get some time, as it seems to have some pretty neat features. Ultimately, though, it’s yet another walled-off community that I’ll need to log on to on a regular basis.
No doubt Hillary, Barack et al. won’t be far behind.