Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is defined as utilization of interconnectivity and interactivity of Web-delivered content. Examples of Web 2.0 include YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, blogs and message boards. These media played a monumental role in the 2008 presidential election by allowing the candidates to connect directly with the masses via the form of communication many have grown to prefer. Young voters, especially those under 30, are members of the demographic that most embraced this form of communication.

YouTube
It has been estimated that approximately 40 percent of the electorate under age 30 have seen a campaign video online. Both the McCain and the Obama campaigns used YouTube to post videos promoting their respective candidate. According to the Washington Post, by June 2008 (five months before the election), the Obama team had uploaded 1,186 videos to his YouTube channel.

YouTube also has been used as a means for voters to catch clips of speeches, debates, statements, and perhaps most notably, gaffes made by each candidate. Candidates in this election were forced to be far more cognizant of what they said, because within hours or even minutes of making a controversial statement, video appeared on YouTube for millions to play (and replay) with the click of a mouse. Examples of this included Republican Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's remarks regarding U.S. policy toward Pakistan, which ended up being the opposite of Sen. McCain's stance. Other examples included politically relevant clips from "Saturday Night Live" and television interviews. Finally, YouTube allowed average Americans to create and post videos expressing their own viewpoints regarding the election. YouTube gave provided an arena where citizens voices could be heard.

Social Networking
Much has been made of the passion and vigor exhibited by young Americans during this election cycle. Individuals ages 18-24 showed record levels of participation in this election. According to the Pew Research Center, 27 percent of people under 30 (37 percent of those ages 18-24) got campaign information from social networking sites. Three such sites are Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

On Facebook, groups including Students for Obama and Young People for McCain had hundreds of thousands of members. On Election Day, Obama's Facebook page had nearly 3.1 million supporters; McCain's had 614,618. Images of buttons with the phrase "I Voted!" were present on millions of individual Facebook pages. The vast majority of these pages belonged to young voters. Facebook's main competitor, MySpace, had similar cybersentiment; Obama had 850,000 MySpace friends at the time of the election.

On Twitter, a micro-blogging site that allows users to express themselves in entries of 140 characters or fewer, both campaigns communicated to their followers where their candidate was and what the candidate was doing. Additionally, a live 2008 election chat allowed Twitter members to discuss and debate, in real time, with one another about all issues pertaining to the election during debates and speeches.

Traditional Web sites Modernize
Today, with more people than ever before getting their information from the Internet, Web sites associated both with news organizations and with the candidates themselves have become more interactive and complex than in years past. According to the Pew Research Center, 24 percent of Americans say they regularly learned something about the campaign from the Internet, almost double the percentage from a comparable point in the 2004 campaign (13 percent). 42 percent of those ages 18 to 29 say they regularly learned about the campaign from the Internet—the highest percentage for any news source. In January 2004, just 20 percent of young people said they routinely got campaign news from the Internet. CNN and MSNBC's Web sites were among the sites most frequented by voters. These sites featured interactive maps, graphs and charts, as well as constantly updated articles, columns and blogs.

Further, the 2008 election saw an overhaul in style and use of the traditional campaign Web sites. Obama's site contained a plethora of multimedia in the form of pictures and videos, and had interactive features that allowed supporters to organize or find a Barack Obama fundraiser or party in their hometowns. It also contained a blog and a message board for supporters to read and leave comments to communicate with one another. Candidates often directly told their supporters to visit their Web sites. Most notably, during the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton was known for ending each stump speech by saying: "Visit my Web site, HillaryClinton.com!" This shows just how important the Internet was in the 2008 election.