Social Networks May Be Game Changers

by Curt Hall

Last month, Grafton County, New Hampshire (USA), Treasurer Carol Elliott lost her bid for a fourth term to Vanessa Sievers. It wasn't due to inexperience or incompetence -- Elliott had held the position for six years -- but Sievers, a 20-year-old junior at Dartmouth, used a campaign strategy based on a US $42 advertisement targeting her college peers that she placed on the social networking site Facebook. Anyone who still has any lingering doubts about the potential for social networks to be a game-changer might want to reconsider. If this isn't a vivid example of how new communications technologies are allowing entrepreneurs to upset the status quo, I don't know what is.