Obama's MySpace Drama

fistfullast33l writes "TechPresident, which is covering the use of technology by Presidential Campaigns for 2008, has a very interesting article on how Obama's MySpace page is currently the subject of an underground battle for control by the campaign itself and the volunteer who created it in 2004. Joseph Anthony worked with the campaign initially and grew the site to include over 160,000 unsolicited friends that the campaign could use to reach out to. It currently is the main Obama page in the Impact Channel on MySpace. However, as Obama's campaign became more centralized and formal, the decision was made to attempt to acquire control of the site from Anthony. They asked him for a price, which he offered up as $49,000 plus part of the $10,000 fee paid to MySpace for the Impact Channel. Obama balked at the price, and decided to start afresh rather than pay the money. The fight broke out into the open when Anthony posted a response on his blog to rumors that the campaign was spreading regarding him wanting to cash out. MyDD has more."

Comments

Re:Not Scum

[Billosaur]

He's not charging $49k to give the name back - he started the site as a supporter of Obama 2 freakin years ago, not knowing that Obama would run for president.

I seriously doubt that he didn't realize Obama might run some day. From the moment this guy showed up on the political radar in Washington, D.C., people have been saying he's got the makings of a President. If not, no one would have ever heard of him. And now this guy, for better or worse, is trying to get his piece of the pie. Frankly, Obama should just pay the money and get it over with, before this becomes some kind of distraction or worse, heavily over-hyped media incident that hurts the campaign (remember Howard Dean's war whoop?!?).

Re:What did you expect?

[Rei]

I think it's pretty scummy to create a "campaign site" to support a candidate, and then try to extort money from the campaign that you're ostensibly supporting.