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Political Web Efforts Are Red Flags For Big Media

Presidential hopefuls for 2008 already consider the Web to be one of their most potent media weapons for reaching voters, but adoption of the Web as a political ad medium is still experimental.

For next year's race, the Web will continue to be more of a distribution tool, a way for voters to proactively retrieve more information about candidates. It's more likely the Web will have a profound impact on the reallocation of political advertising dollars to the Internet in the next decade.

Indeed, like traditional media companies, candidates for political office will have to learn how to properly take advantage of the Web. That means, in part, relinquishing control to consumers and being unafraid to engage and empower them, even if they express opinions candidates don't agree with. Indeed, there are many potential pitfalls to admitting user-generated content. Management is key.

The future of political discourse--like the future of media consumption--will not take place on politician or in-house Web sites. Rather, it will exist in the open-ended forums provided by the likes of Google's YoutTube and News Corp.'s MySpace.

Read the whole story at The Hollywood Reporter »

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