digital thoughts

U.S. President Obama used web 2.0 tools extensively in his election campaign. Some candidates in U.S. tried blogging and setting up websites in prior elections. Obama went many steps ahead of them and used tools such as Central Desktop to organize the volunteers and execute the campaign. As we all know, his strategy yielded fruits and put him in the White House.

Now, BJP’s L.K. Advani is trying the same tactic for his election campaign. He uses Adsense extensively to draw traffic to his website lkadvani.in. You can see some of his ads below.

L.K. Advani has to use lot more than Adsense to win the hearts of web savvy people. Obama used online tools such as this one. Obama pulled all the volunteers and organized them to make sure that their efforts are not wasted or duplicated. Advani can use the similar tools, but I am not sure how many of his volunteers really use the web. Is the politics in India changed? They are not using gundas any more?!

There is couple of other options. Orkut is the only successful social network in India. Facebook, MySpace, Fropper, etc., will take long time to catch up with Orkut. Advani or any other web savvy politicians should use Orkut to spread the message of his campaign and events.

Youtube is also another better avenue. BJP can create some catchy videos with patriotic themes and put it in Youtube. May be they can get some bollywood stars to endorse Advani.

BJP and other parties can do everything they can in the web. But, their success hinges on how many web savvy people go out and vote on the Election Day. Educated and elite always complain about bad politicians and infrastructure in the country. But, they don’t care to vote. Most of the illiterate and villagers vote and they literally elect who governs India. It started changing in the recent years. Advani’s campaign results will tell us how far it is changed.

Related Links: Advani’s Blog | How Obama used Web 2.0 | BarackObama.com