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Lately there has been an excess amount of hype regarding the contributions and importance of social networking and web 2.0 to the 2008 election. It’s as if somehow cornering the web is crucial to a successful campaign and any candidate that isn’t up to date with the latest social networking web 2.0 gizmo is doomed to failure. Almost every day a candidate seems to gets flak by the high tech community for not having a suffiently interactive website, failing to embrace web 2.0, censoring comments on a blog, or whatever.

But can social networking result in more votes, and a subsequent victory? Will social networking and online campaigning be a deciding factor in the 2008 elections?

The answer is no, and for several reasons.

First, social networks mainly appeal to younger people between the age of 13 and 25. Facebook has an older audience on the upper range of that scale while myspace tends to appeal to younger people. However, that age demographics has the highest percentage of voter apathy, and most people who use social networks aren’t even old enough to vote in the first place. So even if a million myspace users join an Obama Myspace page how many of those ‘friends’ will turn into vortes? Not very many.

Second, people already have made up their mind. If you’re going to vote for Hillary Clinton, a Clinton facebook page isn’t going to have an impact on your vote since you’re already decided who you’re going to vote for. Social networking pages attact people who are already loyal to the candinate, not crucial swing voters.

Third, the candidate can still blunder on TV as was downfall of Howard Dean in 2004. Howard dean had an huge internet following but after infamously screaming following the loss of the Iowa primary, his online legion of fans coudn’t save him from ultimately falling out of the front running.

The hype regarding social networking, web 2.0 and the 2008 election has become almost intollerable. Finally, the time has come to dispell some of this hype. TV avertising isn’t going away. Candidartes can still swew up OFFLINE and 13 year old obama fans DONT translate into votes.

Socia

Today, google has rocketed past $700, and as I type it trades at $726. Thi is just the start of a epic sized rally that will take google to $4000+ dollars a share by the end of the next decade. As I have said before, these predictions may seem complately outlandish but they aren’t.  When google was at $100 NO ONE could have envisioned a day when it would trade at 700, and now it is. The rate at with google is growing is unparalled, its dominance unrivaled.
As we transition to a type 1 civilization google impact and influence on the world will grow increasingly dominant. It is anexing marketshare away from almost every other competing technology/internet/and media companies at an increasing rate. Google’s final goal of controling the exchange and transfer of all information on planet earth will eventually be fulfilled by the time the transition to type 1 happens.

Google is the most revolutionary and important company in existance. No other company will play a greater pivitol role in the direction of humanity in the next 50-100 years than google. This isn’t an investment in just a company, but an investment in your ultimate fate.

Frequently on wembasters forums someone will complain about having been peanalized by google. One day their site will be ranking well for various keywords an in a split second all of those rankings disappear. So they go on one a webmaster forum and create a thread in search of some advice and clarification as to how to fix the penalty that caused their site to plument in the rankings.
The typical answer is to ‘fix the problem’ that caused the penalty. However, the ‘problem’ is rarely ever obvious. Google doesn’t send you a notice as to why your site was penalized. There are a multitiude of reasons why a site can be penalized. Too mnay links too soon, anchor text not varied enough, too many pages, too many links exchanges, links to bad sites, duplicate content, keyword stuffing, sandbox, and the list goes on. Going ththough all of those causes is nearly impossible, especially if you have no leads to go on. Most webmasters don’t keyword stuff, which is an obvious cause for a penalty, but there are seemingly endless subtle causes for penalties that are impossible to fix because you are completely oblivious to what they even are.

Sending an ‘apology’ to google explaining how you tried fixed the penalty is futile. I don’t understand why anyone bothers to do this. It’s not like anyone human actually reads them. Google created the webmaster panel to throw a bone  to the webmaster community; not out of actual benevolence.

Third, in spite of the best efforts by the webmaster to remedy the problem I have rarely read of a penalty being reversed. Maybe I have only read of two or three cases but 99% of the time when your site if slapped with one of the numerous rankings penalties you’re essentially sunk. You might as well go stick your head in a toilet cause I can guarantee with great certainty that your site isn’t coming back. You might as well build a new site and cross your fingers that it doesn’t get penalized again. But your second site will probably also get penalized as well.

I know this sounds pessimistic, but as they say the truth hurts. I have seen it many times. A thriving site gets slapped with a penalty, it plummets in rankings, and never comes back.

Since mid August 2006 following the imaginary credit crunch Web 2.0 and other internet related stories have been dominating the headlines. There has been a huge surge in hype regarding social networking, facebook, google, web 2.0. and so on. Every week it seems there are crop of new headlines about another overpriced, noninclusive web 2.0 conference, facebook adding another billion or so in valuation, google stock rising another $100, a new google/youtube.facebook/myspace “killer” is launched, and so on.

Is this a repeat of the 1999-2000 tech euphoria? Maybe, but unlike the previous tech bubble there aren’t nearly as many opportunities for entrepreneurs, which is why Web 2.0 kinda sucks.

For one, it costs a lot more money and requires a lot more programing knowledge to create a dynamic user generated web 2.0 site than a more static web 1.0 site. You can’t just create a social network with an html/javasctip and php book. You would need to be proficient in the latest, most advanced programing languages such as ajax and so on in order to create the user platform required for a social network .

Second, there is too much competition for a new web 2.0 site to be able to generate much traction. Since late 2006 the rate of new social networking web 2.0 type sites being created has EXPLODED, and shows no signs of tapering off. Also, the largest social networking/ web 2.0 sites such as myspace, facebook, and youtube have an increasing growing percent of the total market share of social networking. It’s not that there are more web 2.0 sites to compete with, but that the biggest web 2.0 sites continue to extend their lead at an accelerating rate, which compounds the problem.

While web 2.0 has created many millionaires and some billionaires web 1.0 created many more, and with less work. judging by the admission prices of recent web 2.0 conferences just getting your foot in the door is a struggle, let alone creating a successful web 2.0 site that is able to compete with the current market leaders.

In conclusion, I don’t recommend building a web 2.0 site. Don’t waste your time and money. ignore the hype and focus on achieving more realistic goals than web 2.0 success. Maybe time travel or proving the Riemann hypothesis is a more feasible goal.