Ron Paul and Justin.Tv

One of the things that is immediately apparent when you go to the website of the Ron Paul campaign is its perception of the importance of social networking. While the Clinton and Obama campaigns' websites place social networking in relatively small type in the bottom left of their main pages (and the McCain campaign doesn't mention it at all), on the Paul site the social networking icons are as large as much of the rest of the site. Even more interesting, however, is its use of one of those social networks - Justin.Tv.

Justin.Tv is notable not just for its strange Gorilla-with-a-camera logo (which, I'll be honest certainly helped draw me in in the first place), but for allowing the posting of live streaming video. This allowed the Paul campaign to communicate with its backers in a different way - instead of just putting up ads or campaign experiences, they posted live conference calls with supporters and updates with their precinct captains. They seemed to really let people into the inner workings more than others had in the past. You can see the archive of their videos here.

It also probably helped Paul connect to a large number of his hard core supporters - internet users (see for example this article from the New York Times). Justin.Tv has existed for barely a year. By using the service, the campaign helped show it was keeping up with the latest trends online.