Stats: Obama Still Winning On the Web

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/11/stats-obama-still-winning-on-the-web/

This article that came out today in TechCrunch had some very interesting statistics on Internet users and who they favor in the democratic presidential race. Not surprisingly, Internet users prefer Obama to Clinton.
What is surprising is the extent to which the online community favors Obama. For YouTube users, the margin is 10:1, and 4:1 for Wikipedia users and "facetime share" users (social networking users). However, I don't know that these populations necessarily represent different demographics, and I would think that there is high co-morbidity for usage on these sites. An important factor is that the Internet is largely comprised of young people, who tend to favor Obama over Clinton.

Political sentiments aside, it is truly amazing what Obama has done with the Internet and how he has leveraged himself from an unrecognizable senator to a serious candidate. It goes without saying, but it is unlikely that he would have made it without the Internet and his highly trafficked campaign site/ ability to raise significant funds online. I forget the exact numbers, but I think the average donation to Obama's campaign was about 90 dollars and small donations comprised a large percentage of contributions. It's analogous to being the tail of the Long Tail. By utilizing the Internet, he has reached that market of people who can easily donate small sums of money, whereas traditionally the majority of funds came from a few people who donated large amounts of money. The Internet is Obama's "competitive advantage" and he has used it wisely.

He may not be the best candidate, but he is certainly the best campaigner.