MyBO (My.BarackObama.com) was a social networking platform built by Blue State Digital for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. The platform enabled supporters to create profiles, organize local events, form groups, raise funds, and coordinate volunteer activities, accumulating over 2 million user profiles by Election Day.

Political Evolution

2007: Platform Launch MyBO launched in February 2007 alongside Obama’s presidential campaign announcement. Built by Blue State Digital, the platform provided social networking tools designed specifically for political organizing, allowing supporters to create profiles, connect with nearby volunteers, and begin forming local groups during the primary season.

2008: General Election Expansion During the general election, MyBO’s usage expanded significantly. Supporters organized over 200,000 offline events through the platform’s event tools, including debate watch parties, canvassing drives, and voter registration efforts. The platform’s fundraising tools helped the campaign raise over $500 million from individual donors, with an average online donation of approximately$80.

2009: Transition to Organizing for America After the 2008 election, the campaign’s digital infrastructure, including MyBO’s 13-million-person email list, was transitioned to Organizing for America (OFA), a project of the Democratic National Committee. This marked one of the first attempts to convert campaign-built digital organizing tools into ongoing political infrastructure.

2012 and Beyond: Legacy While MyBO itself was not reused for the 2012 campaign, its model influenced subsequent campaign technology. The Obama 2012 campaign built new proprietary tools based on lessons learned from MyBO, and other campaigns adopted similar platform approaches for supporter engagement and volunteer coordination.

Platform Characteristics

Key features that shaped MyBO’s role in digital campaigning:

Social Networking Profiles: Supporters created personal profiles listing their location, interests, and campaign involvement, enabling connections between geographically proximate volunteers.

Event Organizing Tools: Users could create and discover local campaign events using ZIP code-based search, RSVP functionality, and event promotion tools. This bridged online organizing with offline political activity.

Peer-to-Peer Fundraising: Supporters created personal fundraising pages with individual goals, allowing them to solicit donations from their social networks on behalf of the campaign.

Phone Banking and Canvassing: The platform integrated voter contact tools, enabling supporters to make phone calls and organize door-to-door canvassing from within the platform. In the final four days before the 2008 election, volunteers made over 3 million calls through the system.

Supporter Groups: Users formed groups organized by geography, demographics, professional background, and policy interests, creating subcommunities within the broader campaign network.

Political Impact

MyBO’s significance in digital political history includes:

Digital Organizing at Scale: Demonstrated that a campaign-controlled social network could coordinate volunteer activity across all 50 states without relying solely on traditional party infrastructure.

Small-Dollar Fundraising: The platform’s peer-to-peer fundraising tools showed that large numbers of small online donations could compete with traditional high-dollar fundraising, with the campaign’s average online donation of approximately $80 challenging established fundraising models.

Data-Driven Field Operations: User activity on MyBO generated data that informed the campaign’s field strategy, connecting online engagement metrics with offline voter contact operations.

Campaign Technology Market: MyBO’s success catalyzed the development of campaign technology as a distinct sector, with subsequent campaigns investing in proprietary digital organizing platforms.

Notable Political Events

February 2007 Launch: MyBO debuted alongside Obama’s presidential announcement, immediately offering supporters organizing tools that distinguished the campaign’s digital strategy from competitors.

Early 2008 Primary Organizing: During the Iowa caucuses and subsequent primaries, MyBO-organized events helped the campaign build grassroots infrastructure in states where it lacked traditional party support networks.

September 2008 Debate Watch Parties: The platform coordinated thousands of debate watch parties nationwide, converting online supporters into local event hosts and creating visible community presence for the campaign.

October-November 2008 Get-Out-the-Vote Mobilization: In the final weeks, MyBO’s phone banking tools facilitated millions of voter contact calls, with over 3 million calls logged in the last four days before Election Day.

January 2009 Transition to OFA: The conversion of MyBO’s infrastructure to Organizing for America represented one of the first attempts to maintain a campaign’s digital organizing capacity beyond Election Day.

MyBO established a template for campaign-controlled social networking platforms, demonstrating that purpose-built digital tools could coordinate political organizing at a national scale and influence how subsequent campaigns approached online supporter engagement.