Cost, impact, and public acceptance

From the outside looking in it seems Facebook is the most cost effective, has the most impact, and public confidence. That's not intirely true. Yes, while I agree Facebook is bringing in the money by the truck load for politicians, I don't necessarily believe it has the "most impact", or voter's confidence; even though grandma's now on Facebook. I believe that honor belongs to YouTube. In May of this year YouTube announced its daily view exceeds two billion. Yes, that's B-for two Billions views every day. Politically, any gaffe by a cadidate can go viral within minutes and promptly put an end to any promising campaign; it's call "gotcha moments". These moments are almost exclusive to national politics (for obvious reasons, who cares what a small town mayor thinks right?). This is an excerpt from 2006 CNN article:Virginia Republican Sen. George Allen's controversial remark to a young campaign aide working for Allen's opponent, Democrat Jim Webb. The comment was caught on camera by the Webb aide, and was put on YouTube. It became a smash hit. Allen was expected to cruise to re-election, but thanks in part to the YouTube video, Allen lost his seat by just a few thousand votes to Webb. His loss, along with the razor thin defeat of Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Montana -- who had his own damaging moments on YouTube -- helped swing control of the Senate to the Democrats. From this one can conclude two things: 1) Youtube has a greater mpact in generating opionions and swaying voters. People that follows politicians on Facebook already like those politicians and are likely to vote for them (of course, if they are a constituent, often they're not). 2) There's proof of YouTube impact on elections while it's quite difficult to measure Facebook's impact, if at all possible. The fact both parties had televised YouTube debates is proof Americans have accepted YouTube as a new media outlet in the political enviroment. I think what remains to be seen is whether people will use Youtube to soil the political landscape with tic-for-tac damaging videos.