FeedBurner's VP of advertising describes how presidential hopefuls are creating online content and predicts the impact it will have on elections.

Traditional media has long played a major role in U.S. Presidential elections. Some of the most famous events in newsprint, radio and television have involved political figures, their campaigns and elections.  

For example, a newspaper headline erroneously proclaimed "Dewey Defeats Truman" in 1948. And when Richard Nixon squared off with John F. Kennedy in the first of four televised Presidential debates in 1960, those who heard it on the radio proclaimed Nixon to be the winner, while the 70 million television viewers focused on what they saw: Vice President Nixon, wearing an ill-fitting shirt and sporting his five-o'clock shadow, was matched against a tan, fit, articulate Senator from Massachusetts. Television's influential role in political elections was forever secured.

Oh, how times have changed for our politicians, particularly those that aspire to be our President. While it's unfortunate that Vice President Nixon's team didn't have him freshened up for that television appearance in 1960, today's candidates would be relieved if they only had to be "on" and exposed to voters for such limited amounts of time as they go about their campaigning. 

In 2004, it was big news when Howard Dean used a video game on his campaign website, John Kerry announced his running mate via email, and Bush/Cheney offered a news widget delivering campaign highlights to websites.

Comparing the role of digital media in 2004 vs. 2008 underscores the pace of innovation with interactive media. Today, new digital platforms present the campaign media teams with an abundance of new opportunities. With the first wave of candidates, web-based video, social networking, blogs and RSS feeds are being employed by reds and blues alike.

Candidate-generated platforms
So what's new for the 2008 elections? Here are five new platforms that virtually every candidate is utilizing to create "candidate-generated" content:

1. Blogs: Candidates have their own blogs, are encouraging supporters to create blogs, and are advertising on the popular independent political blogs

2. RSS feeds: Candidate sites include feeds for news and recent blog posts

3. Videos on YouTube: Every campaign stop, speaking engagement and PR opportunity is being captured on video and distributed online

4. Social networking profiles: Nearly every candidate has a profile on MySpace and/or Facebook. (In March, MySpace launched a politics channel, called the Impact Channel, which will feature links to the profiles of 10 presidential candidates: five Democrats and five Republicans.

5. Podcasts: Some candidates are recording interviews and Q&A sessions and making them available via downloadable audio.

The table below illustrates interactive media adoption by some of the leading candidates. Many of these platforms either did not exist in 2004, or were in their infancy and a non-factor.

Official Candidate-Generated Content

TV news crews and ambitious newspaper reporters will dog the candidates for the next year and a half, but the real media story for the '08 elections is unfolding online. One slip up -- an off color remark here, a fake southern accent there -- and a candidate can fall into a political blogger's death grip or be trapped on a video site's annals.  

Advertising on user-generated sites
In addition to candidate-generated content, our candidates are tapping into user-generated content as advertisers. We've already seen early campaigns running on popular blogs, and we expect to see ads in the feeds for those and other news providers, as well as alongside video and on social networking sites. The candidates' media planning teams can leverage networks that have aggregated user-generated content and created targeting options that help them reach constituents. 

Whether interactive media makes a material difference in the elections remains to be seen. One impact might be on voter turnout among certain age groups: It's one thing to win the hearts of a large demographic group online, but if its members don't turn out at the polls, the influence doesn't translate into votes.  

If you are challenged to follow the pace of digital media evolution and the impact on the '08 race, you may find the Tech President blog to be useful. Launched in 2007, it tracks technology adoption by the candidates, as well as the impact of "voter-generated" content.  

Whether MySpace or YouTube will be early indicators of a candidate's success is unclear, but one thing is certain: Digital media with candidate-generated content is taking its place alongside traditional media on the campaign trail. 

Brent Hill is vice president of advertising services, FeedBurner. Read full bio.