According to Wall Street Journal article, “New Outlets For Political Junkies,” presidential campaigns in 2004 spent $29 million on e-mail marketing, web development, and online advertising. In 2008, this figure is estimated to skyrocket. PQ Media has estimated that in 2008, online-related spending will grow to around $80 million — more than a 35% increase. The upward trend shouldn’t come as a surprise — we all know Internet sites will become a huge budget component of the campaigns. However, not only are Internet sites eating up dollars, they are aggressively drawing in traffic steams by offering new campaign features. For example, MySpace announced recently that it will hold a “virtual election” a couple days prior to the national election. We will closely follow these online communities, and it will be interesting to gauge the accuracy of their predictions. In the era of American Idol and political “experts” becoming online communities, the “virtual election” may be just the tip of the iceberg.
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