Or does it? Barack Obama’s campaign team has mastered the Internet for fund raising. Now they want to use it to get out the vote in 10-weeks’ time? Obama’s ground game has been proven legendary with volunteers going door-to-door street by street to get out the vote. His field operation dwarf’s John McCain’s and can his Facebook friends be influenced and moved from their computer desks to the polls?

Obama’s Facebook viral group has almost 1 million members/friends. His page on MySpace adds another almost 800,000. Can friends of friends be influenced to vote? Will they listen and move from MySpace or Twitter to action? Many think those on the site and identified on his page are likely voters to begin with so how does the candidate send out a viral ‘get out the vote’ message?

I was the grey hair in the room in 1997 when a young techie for a large tyre manufacturer beamed with pride over some Web code he’d written for the site allowing truckers to find the nearest dealership on the Web. Note the date, I said to him, “Ted, how will they get online if stuck by the side of the road without a computer or phone dial-up?” Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

What about those who chat on age sensitive, personal interest or dogma specific groups? Would iVillage members be willing to bring their political choices into the online trenches? With trolls waiting to flame just to be contrary, how quickly will a discussion reach a blowback tipping point? Can someone really convince another or do they all come off as blowhard idiots?

Business Week reported that Howard Dean’s wildly successful 2003 group of Web “Deaniacs” did not translate into dominance at the primary polls. Indeed ‘the scream’ undid most if not all of that great work and allowed Kerry to slip in under the radar. Even Obama Girl, who’s viral videos were watched more then 9 million times did not register to vote for the primary in February.

So will one ‘Twitter’ or text message their friends on Election Day to get out the vote? One group widely courted yesterday by Howard Dean was the University Democratic group and he complimented them for their activity and told how important their efforts were in the primary.

Now we are looking at the convergence of web, television, phone and other platforms and now strategists are talking about how the Web can be used as peer pressure vehicle. When one logs onto MyBarackObama.com, they can immediately see their personal “activity index” which includes calls made to voter lists, events hosted, and funds raised for which one gets a grade of between 1 and 10. The theory is you can either show up or embarrass your “friends” into activity. That seems a bit extreme and in this upside down campaign it just could work.

Or could it all be for naught. Folks sitting at their computer terminals can easily opine and flame but if one tries to push, the blowback is dramatic and huge.

The Obama Campaign is already beginning to annoy with daily e-messages and SMS text messages. The real danger is that they reach the tipping point and piss off those already in the house.