I have a MySpace page and I absolutely love it!

A personal Web page with private e-mail and instant messaging features, I find it a quick and easy way to keep in touch with my friends and family. It is also a great way to network as the format makes it easy to meet your friends' friends. But new faces have recently popped into the “Top Friends” section of my friends' MySpace pages; faces like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

In fact many 2008 presidential candidates have set up MySpace profiles in an effort to attract new voters to their campaigns. As an increasingly influential part of popular culture, it's no surprise. With a network nearing 200 million, the site reportedly attracts 230,000 new members each day; potentially a lot of votes.

For those unfamiliar with MySpace, people cannot correspond without mutual acceptance. For example, I can visit a candidate's profile and request via e-mail permission to add him or her to my “Friends” list. His or her campaign would then view my profile and accept my request, allowing the campaign and I to correspond freely through forwards and blogs.

The candidate's icon (typically a head shot) would then be visible on my profile page. My “Friends” could then link to the candidate's profile from my page and likewise request correspondence. As the average member tends to have between 150 and 200 contacts, the influence of the Web site is far reaching. A social networking site could prove to be a fast, inexpensive way to campaign.

Although MySpace randomly features political profiles on its front page in the “Cool New People” section, the popularity of a candidate's profile depends entirely on the Internet community. With pictures, video and sound bytes, profiles provide an overview of each candidate in terms of religion, family, culture and of course political views. This format enables younger generations to get to know the candidates by presenting the information in a context that's familiar to them.

The profiles of presidential candidates have appeared only recently, so it's too early to predict what impact if any MySpace will have on the 2008 election. Currently, Clinton has roughly 53,000 contacts; John Edwards has roughly 30,000, while McCain and Obama have roughly 23,000 contacts each. These are not earth shattering numbers, yet in the months leading up to the election it will be interesting to see how effectively candidates are able to use MySpace to reach a large and often ignored demographic of young voters.

Estabrook's column appears Mondays in The Citizen, and she can be reached at estabrookcarole@yahoo.com