Presidential Candidates On Friendster?

from the yes,-but-have-they-gotten-any-dates-out-of-it? dept

Just what we need. If you hadn't figured out that most of these social networking sites were getting to the point of being completely useless, it appears that politicians are now invading them. Realizing the hype that candidates like Howard Dean received by embracing some of these technologies, Business Week is reporting that both John Kerry and John Edwards have set up Friendster profiles. Of course, my first reaction is that these were probably just fake profiles set up by fans. Is it too much to assume that Business Week checked to make sure these were legit? The article doesn't include any quotes from either man (or campaign) about why they're on Friendster, though, they do include a quote from a spokesperson for President Bush explaining why he has refused to join Friendster (it "doesn't fit" with his strategy). Either way, if they are real, it's likely they were simply set up by staffers, and the politicians themselves have no idea they're really on these sites. Of course, this also raises the question of which network they should join. If they're on Friendster, do they need to be on Orkut, Tribe and all the others as well? These are politicians, after all, and they don't want to leave anyone out. Perhaps the candidates will really need to hire the "social network coordinator" that Jason Kottke has joked about.