Personalized Email From "A Friend"

If you didn't get this, you should see it. It may be personalization run amok, but it's always nice to be thanked!

http://my.barackobama.com/holiday

There is one particularly interesting thing about it. They are pushing sharing, but they appear to have controlled it carefully. I tried sending it to BlogReaders--I thought that would be a nice touch; when that didn't work, I used the word Reader, hoping it would recognize that as a given name. No luck--in both cases, it came back personalized to Friend. When I send it to Robert, it recognized a real name and personalized. Nice filter!

Don't give them credit for thinking this up, however. In March 2008 I wrote about a video sent to a student during the Dutch political campaign. Not as elaborate, but perhaps a bit funnier. Last fall another student ran the (winning) campaign for the Conservative Party in Norway using a lot of electronic and social media.

The key is that both countries have election laws that permit only a minimal amount of money to be spent (and a short time in which to spend it). What a good idea! Wish I believed it could ever happen here!!!

I'll see you early in the new year. Let me add my wishes to those of the famous friend for a wonderful holiday season for all!!!