Anti-FISA Group On Obama’s Website Reaches 20,000 Members
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, TechnologyI wrote about this last Thursday, and at that time the group had 14,600 members.
4 days later, it just crossed 20,000.
Of note, this group started around June 25th, so it has grown to this size in about two weeks. Also, the pace of members joining seems to be picking up, and I can’t help but think it’ll continue to grow at a pretty fast clip, especially if the left blogosphere keeps pushing people to join it.
My question…how many active members are on Obama’s social network in total? What I mean by that is there are usually people who join and don’t really participate, and then there are those who are considered active members, who usually check in at least weekly.
I think I found the answer in a story about Obama’s social network from IHT a few days ago:
So far, MyBo has attracted 900,000 members, although aides play down the raw numbers.
A good rule of thumb for social communities like this is that 10% of your total members will be active members, so that means that about 90,000 people on the site are involved enough to be considered active.
So, at the current growth rate, this Anti-FISA group could be around 45,000 (or half the active members) in just about two weeks. And then a month and a half from now, well, it would be reaching 100,000 people. Obviously this doesn’t mean that everybody who is part of the group could be considered an “active” member, but they would have had to interact with the site at least once or twice in the past couple weeks. In any event, it’ll be hard to ignore those numbers.
Again, I don’t know if this will force him to change his position, but at the very least he should be responsive to a group that would, at that time, represent the majority opinion of the most active users of his site.
More as it develops…
This entry was posted on Monday, July 7th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 7th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Maybe it’s all part of a calculated move by Obama to inspire a dedicated fervor until, finally, he heeds their cries. A political juke, if you will. Responsive to the people and all that.
:-D
July 7th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
You’re writing as if you haven’t seen Obama’s written response to this group. Maybe I missed a post when you wrote about it? He wrote a length piece and then 3 of his staff were online for and hour responding to comments and questions.
July 7th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Actually Sam I hadn’t seen it. I have been out of town since the 3rd. Thanks so much for giving me a heads up. I’m going to post an update post soon.
July 7th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
No probs. And thanks for all the updates. I enjoy following from the other side of the pond!
July 7th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
[...] I guess I left town before this happened, but Obama has already talked to the members of the quickly expanding group. [...]
July 8th, 2008 at 7:03 am
I’m not sure your analysis on active users is accurate. I signed up for the site for the sole purpose of joining that group, and I suspect I’m not alone. I’m not an “active” user.
July 8th, 2008 at 8:09 am
@anon, that’s why I said this…
So while it’s true that you may not consider yourself an active member, Obama’s community tech group would.
Also, I’m sure the vast majority of new signups are keeping tabs on the group, watching it grow, etc. That’s considered interaction.