Joshua Levy at the Personal Democracy Forum has a post today about the use of MySpace for political campaigns and by advocacy organizations. He interviews Scott Goodstein, who has worked on the Save the Internet, Save1800Suicide and Military Free Zone campaigns, and me (I work for the Genocide Intervention Network).

In case you don't have time to read the whole article, the four rules Joshua devised from interviewing us are:

1. Reach Out to People Where They Congregate
William Upski Wimsatt: Using MySpace for politics doesn't only involve developing profiles and campaigns, but discovering those political uses where they already exist. (GI-Net has found this to be true -- by the time we got to Facebook, there were already dozens of groups self-organized.)

2. MySpace Isn't Local (Except When It Is)
Scott Goodstein: Friendships on MySpace aren't based across geographical lines. You are friends with people all over the country. ... He likes to use the example of the local bartender with a MySpace profile. That bartender -- who is in contact with hundreds or thousands of people linked to a physical space -- could be an influential mover in MySpace, with thousands of friends who live in the same area and go to the same bar.

3. Let People Take Ownership
Zack Exley: Messages are more effective if you let people develop the stories themselves, in their own words, using their own experiences. ... The newsletter turned out to be an incredibly powerful organizing tool because it showed people being a union, not just talking about one. It allowed the workers who were leading the union campaign to express a fully-formed tone and attitude of what the union was all about.

4. Fundraise Elsewhere
The primary goals of a MySpace page are to make friends, generate awareness, and take action -- not necessarily to make money.

A companion post talking more about GI-Net's approach and my own thoughts on the potential for "bottom-up" organizing using social networking is available on my own website.

Questions/comments appreciated.