Obama 2.0

A lot of analysis on the exemplary Obama campaign is out -- I particularly thought this NY Times article informative, as well as this piece looking at aspirations for the new U.S. presidency from the foreign perspective.

Most Indian press is examining Obama's take on foreign policy issues and whether he will take a tougher stance on U.S. firms outsourcing to Asia (a good survey of experts downplaying those fears can be found here).

The Hindustan Times also tries to paint an optimistic scenario in this article , including such nuggets as

The 47-year-old, elected as the first black President of the US, is said to have a close affinity with things Indian. He carries a miniature figure of Lord Hanuman for luck and had a picture of Mahatma Gandhi placed in his Senate office.

One article from The Economic Times drew some interesting numbers about Obama's massive leveraging of the Internet:

In total, more than 3 million people donated for Obama, twice as many as any other presidential candidate in history. The Democrat has 2.5 million supporters on his page on a social networking site, and more than 1.5 million people signed up at another site created just for the campaign.

As I've said so many times, it's about connecting with your community, establishing trust. From the same article:

“I think the campaign did a great job of making us feel like we were part of a group,” said C J Fonzi, 28, a US consultant living in Hyderabad. Fonzi donated $100 once, and $25 three times.

Here's whats most interesting to me -- how will he use this immense social networking base during his term as President? How will he capitalize on and extend the connective power he's established? The potential and possibilities are enormous as he transitions from a Facebook campaign to the first Facebook Presidency.

What will Obama 2.0 be like?