Micha L. Sifry of PDF has examined which of the Dem. Candidates running for president in 2008 has attracted most online enthusiasm by looking at indicators of online sentiment like: The number of friends each campaign has tallied on MySpace; the number of wall posts they've garnered on their Facebook pages; the number of incoming blog links on Technorati; and the number of photos with the candidate's name mentioned in the description on Flickr. In the article Sifry concludes that despite having a far less developed website and online team than the other top tier candidates, Barack Obama is leading the Democratic pack in terms of bottom-up enthusiasm online.
It will, as Sifry notes, be interesting to seen not only how these online social hubs in the 2008 campaign will mirror public opinion, but also if they becomes engines for shifting opinion.