Dean Campaign is Amazon of political campaigns
From volunteer-created Switch2Dean.com, an Apple-like testimonials site featuring people who've switched to Howard Dean, to all kinds of other bells and whistles mean that the Dean Campaign is taking advantage of the Web and the Internet like no politician ever has before according to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required):
In fact, at this point in the campaign, the Dean online operation is doing to political campaigns what Amazon.com did to retailing. For example, in the old-fashioned world of bricks-and-mortar politics, campaigns would send in a crew of advance people several days before a big event to drum up crowds. Dean staffers just send out e-mails, and thousands of supporters materialize.
...One of their biggest jobs is just keeping up with rapidly growing traffic. Another is coming up with new features, like "Deanlink," which allows supporters to meet each other. It was inspired by Friendster.com, the social-networking site that is a word-of-mouth phenomenon.
Scattered throughout DeanForAmerica.com are other novelties, like a feature that lets supporters print customized campaign signs on their home printers. And there is "Troll Goal," named after the folks who post inflammatory messages on Web sites. Whenever a troll flames a Dean blog, a Dean booster donates more money. The troll realizes he is only helping the candidate, and stops.