Camp Obama, with a broad network of volunteers helping to get the word out online, has been among the most successful thus far at keeping happy campers frolicking in the grassroots.

Until now. One dedicated volunteer, Joe Anthony, has left the tent. In November 2004, Mr. Anthony created a supportive, unofficial MySpace page for Senator Barack Obama with the url of myspace.com/barackobama. When Mr. Obama caught on, so did the page, and after awhile, Mr. Anthony was spending hours a day managing the site. The campaign started corresponding with him (and sending in corrections), and eventually Mr. Anthony wanted to be compensated for his time.

The campaign wanted the site under its control. Negotiations ensued and failed. The Obama campaign got MySpace to intervene. Mr. Anthony lost access to the site he started and nurtured, but he did get to keep around 160,000 of Mr. Obama’s MySpace “friends.” TechPresident’s Micah L. Sifry,who originally reported on the flap last night, has much of the he-said, they-said.

The dispute illustrates the struggles campaigns face as they try to navigate Web 2.0. On the one hand, there’s the old-school style of top-down control in campaigns, and on the other, there’s the sometimes uncontrollable excitement of far-flung supporters united through the Web.

“In an earlier age, you were talking about a sort of broadcast,” said Roz Lemieux, executive director of New Organizing Institute, a campaign training organization founded by some of the liberal net gurus from the 2004 campaigns. She said that campaigns would strive to send a “simple clear message and always stay on that message.”

Source and More :  http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com

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