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Hillary Clinton launched a new ad to the Web that faded to black just like the final episode of the Sopranos.

The video drew more than a million viewers to the Clinton campaign Web site and to YouTube, which further illustrates the growing reliance by some of the more technologically savvy campaigns to connect with voters online.

In the new Clinton clip, Hillary Clinton, like Tony Soprano, spins through the musical selections in a diner in Mt. Kisco, N.Y., near her home in Chappaqua, as Bill asked her about the campaign and song winner.

The Soprano touches are subtle but perfectly obvious to any fan of the series. Nicely done.

Technorati tags: hillary clintonhillary-clintonsopranosyoutube

Every day I am tracking how many friends each Presidential hopeful has on MySpace. Here is what happened:

• The Republicans woke from their slumber with a collective 30% growth spurt yesterday
• TRACKER: I found Sam Brownback’s MySpace page
• Tommy Thompson is the growth leader again with 67% growth
• McCain ranks 2nd place over all with over 40% growth
• Hillary is on the bottom rung today after losing 13 friends, but still holds 3rd place in the total friends bracket

Check out all the stats in the Presidential MySpace Race!

(more…)

John Edwards has 18,645 friends on his MySpace page. Which is more total friends than all of the Republicans combined (16,610).

Barack Obama added 4,515 new friends yesterday alone, which is more than the running total of friends for several of the Republican candiddates including, Thompson, Gilmore, Paul, Tancredo, and Hunter. Romney has a total of 5,472 friends and McCain has a total of 4,491 friends, which barely stays ahead of Barack’s daily friend increase.

Are there really only 16,610 Republicans that use MySpace?

Are the candidates unaware of how to reach people through MySpace? When I helped a friend run for State Senate 10 days before the 2006 election, we managed to reach out to 54,000 local residents living in just 12 zip codes.

One could argue that some of the candidates are just not widely known or perhaps it’s too early in the race, but that argument wouldn’t work for McCain.

Some candidates are not helping themselves very well in the race either. Ron Paul has two MySpace pages. If you were to add them together, he would have almost as many friends as Hillary.

Finally, the most puzzling play by a Repulican I’ve seen to date, is Rudy Giuliani who has a “private” profile on MySpace. Maybe the Republicans just don’t get the concept of Social Media, which will be the big white elephant sitting in the room during the 2008 Presidential election; except this time, the big elephant isn’t republican… so far.

myspacepresidentialelectioncandidate

Since yesterday, Hillary Clinton, Jim Gilmore, Tommy Thompson each had more than 5% growth in adding new friends since yesterday (4/16/2006). While looking at just the number of total friends, Barack Obama is the front runner with a total 103,504 friends. However, I think it is interesting to look at the growth rates for all the candidates.

What would happen if Tommy Thompson continues a daily growth rate of 5.24% new friends per day, and IF Barack Obama continued to have a daily growth rate of 1.31% per day? If the math is correct here, Tommy would catch up and pass Barack by November 1st. I guess you never know!!

myspacepresidentialelectioncandidate

On the 1st and 2nd of January, MySpace will hold a primary before any of the official state primaries when every user will be asked to vote for their favorite candidate. I’ve decided to watch the number of MySpace friends that each candidate has leading up to the MySpace primary. OnApril 3rd, when the digital primary was announced, I logged the number of friends for the top 4. As it stands today, most of the candidates already have MySpace pages and the numbers of friends for their campaigns are multiplying.

• Barack Obama 4/3 89,465 friends 4/16 102,165 friends
  
• John Edwards 4/3 16,921 friends 4/16 18,332 friends
  
• Hillary Clinton 4/3 7,468 friends 4/16 10,182 friends
  
• Mitt Romney 4/16 5,277 friends
• John McCain 4/3 3,596 friends 4/16 4,368 friends
• Ron Paul 4/16 3,528 friends (Congressman page: 5,687 friends)
• Bill Richardson 4/16 2,586 friends
• Dennis Kucinich 4/16 2,179 friends
• Joe Biden 4/16 1,618 friends
• Tom Vilsack 4/16 1,294 friends
• Tom Tancredo 4/16 1,138 friends
• Duncan Hunter 4/16 1,100 friends
• Chris Dodd 4/16 702 friends
• Jim Gilmore 4/16 435 friends
• Tommy Thompson 4/16 247 friends
• Rudy Guiliani (hidden profile)
• Sam Brownback (no official myspace page)

myspacepresidentialelectioncandidate

Ten days before the 2006 election, a dentist from my hometown of Mansfield, Ma had decided to run as a republican for state senate. The dentist had never been involved in politics before and he was trailing the democratic incumbent by a wide margin. However, the dentist’s more experienced opponent had been focused primarily on seniors and baby boomers.

Typically the most active age group of all the voters is over the age of 50. However, in our home town of Mansfield, the median age of the residents is about 29. He thought there might be an opportunity to speak to this untapped younger audience. But how?

The dentist called me and asked if I could help him reach out to younger voters online. So, we created some videos to post on YouTube and a MySpace page for his campaign. With less than a week left before the election, we sent invitations through MySpace to 54,000 local residents that were between the ages of 18 to 40. As a result, hundreds of people, mostly in their mid-twenties, sent messages to the dentist and promised their support.

On Election Day, the dentist lost the election. However, he lost it only by a narrow margin. One week earlier he was trailing widely in the polls, and by Election Day, he was able to have a conversation with people on MySpace and generate the closest margin of any republican candidate throughout the entire state of Massachusetts. If only we had started making friends sooner.

Speaking of friends, MySpace has more registered members than the population of Mexico and politicians are taking it very seriously! There is such a push by candidates to make “friends” that MySpace has formally announced that it will hold its own primaries on January 1st and 2nd of 2008. The MySpace primary will be held before any of the official state primaries and every user will be asked to vote for their favorite candidate. The most interesting factor to watch will be the number of friends each candidate has after the MySpace primary. As it stands today, most of the candidates already have MySpace pages and the numbers of friends for their campaigns are multiplying.

• Barack Obama (89,465 friends)
• John Edwards (16,921 friends)
• Hillary Clinton (7,468 friends)
• John McCain (3,596 friends)
• Rudy Guiliani (hidden profile)