OPEN

Barack Obama seems to be learning from pop music promoters when it comes to social media. Don’t pussyfoot aroundd wondering whether a blog, a forum or videos on MySpace are the way forward.

Do the lot.

Yep, that’s right when it comes superstars of the music or political world – and let’s face it, for many the Preseidential election process may seem like an extra-long X-Factor (American Idol, if you’re in the US) without text message voting – you need a foot in every social media platform going.

Obama – who will probably end up as running mate to Hilary C, but there’s never any certainties in this show – has, take a deep breath: a Facebook group, vids on YouTube, a MySpace page and, er, everything else you can think of.

Now he’s launched his own social network on his website, my.barackobama.com, which social network-watcher blog Mashable is impressed by (and Mashable ain’t easy to impress) albeit with some caveats:

Surprisingly, it’s not totally lame: you can organize fundraising, create events, find Obama events near you, build a network of friends (that email invite system is crucial), send messages, join groups and write a blog about how you’re helping Obama, or how you feel about the Obama campaign. Groups are the way to connect to strangers on the network, since there doesn’t seem to be a browse feature (you can, however, search by name or zipcode). In many regards, it’s more like Facebook than MySpace or YouTube – simple, text-based and focused on connecting with people you know or those around you. But it also lacks the openness of hi5 or Piczo: self expression tools like embedding your own video clips from other sites, adding Slide.com slideshows and uploading lots of photos just don’t seem to be present. In other words: it’s Obama’s space, not yours.