View a transcript of this interview
Both Senators Barack Obama and Sam Brownback announced their candidacies for President last month using a web video clip. Both used a Flash video player that can be shared on different sites. This utility allows any Web site or blog to display the video.
Views of the Obama clips, two were published together, total about 450,000 while Brownback’s streams total approximately 9,000 as of this morning.
Beet.TV can’t immediately determine the views of the Hilary Clinton announcement tape as it is not a viral video, meaning, it is "locked" on the campaign site.
What does this mean? Obama is a media sensation and Brownback is a little known Kansas senator, so the popularity of the clips don’t mean much, per se.
What it does indicate are the relative strategies of the Democrats and Republicans in harnessing the blogosphere and traditional media. Internet visionary Joe Trippi explains this topic in this clip (above) that we first posted on Beet.TV in July.
If Joe is right that Democrats (he’s one) are better at utilizing the "bottom-up" world of social networks and blogs, then the use of viral videos could be a powerful tool for his party. We’ll see.
Barack Obama , Sam Brownback, Joe Trippi, Viral Video, 
Campaign Video
