Barack Obama won presidential elections partially due his presence in Internet. He has used social media to facilitate dialog with the voters. His main blog is http://www.barackobama.com/ but he used also many popular social portals. They are free to use and connect to big social network. Pictures for example can be delivered using http://www.flickr.com, information about events with http://eventful.com, blogs by http://www.blogger.com/, micro-blogs with http://twitter.com and movies with http://www.youtube.com). This way presidential campaign was extended to Internet and therefore has accelerated communication.
I can't imagine how many people had to be involved to organize such campaign. This has become new standard and there is no choice if the politician want to win. I observe that some politicians after campaign stop to use it and I think they decided not to be politicians any more.
What this means to us? If we want we can have the same benefits as social media is open for everyone. We can reach everyone if we know how to, try and spend time to do this. We will be learning how to us it. Access to the world that requires high investments is over. New ideas can be delivered quickly but revised also quickly.
Let's see how Barack's Obama is active in this area: