PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN 2008: Candidates weave the Web

WASHINGTON -- Call it the MySpace Primary. The Internet has emerged as a key battleground in the nascent 2008 presidential contest.

Democratic and Republican candidates are pouring more resources than ever into reaching voters, organizing supporters and raising money online, transforming the way presidential campaigns are waged.

"We're entering a different era of political communication, and no one is an expert at it yet. The velocity of change is extraordinary," said Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, a group that teaches candidates to harness the Web. "Everyone is experimenting online, because we don't know yet what will work."

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Number of Americans getting political news online more than doubles

More Americans are getting their political news from the Internet. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which measures such things, the four years between the mid-term election in 2002 and the recent election in 2006 saw an explosion of interest in using the Internet as a primary source of political news. During that time period, the percentage of Americans who used the Internet as their main source of election coverage more than doubled from 7 percent to 15 percent.

The increase in Internet usage did not necessarily harm traditional television and print outlets, however. Pew's survey of 1,750 Americans found that the percentages of those who still used print and TV as sources held steady, at 34 percent and 69 percent, respectively. Those worried that the rise of the Internet would automatically spell the doom of traditional news channels can breathe a (small) sigh of relief at the news.

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