Obama Reaches 1 Million Facebook Supporters

Around 10 p.m. last night, Barack Obama’s official Facebook page reached 1 million supporters. The news has generated buzz, and rightfully so. It dwarfs John McCain’s 147,000+ supporters, demonstrating his breadth of support. (techPresident has charts of various online popularity metrics) Politico’s Ben Adler reported the two campaign’s internal social networking tools have similar numbers – with my.barackobama.com over 900,000 and McCain Space reporting only “tens of thousands.”

I found it interesting it took so long to reach the 1 million milestone. After all, it took just 9 days for Stephen Colbert’s group to reach 1 million members in October 2007. Barack Obama’s independent “One Million Strong” group is only up to 566,000 after several months of trying. I don’t think it’s because of political apathy, especially since political groups opposing Bush and Clinton already hit the mark. What I think it suggests is that people take supporting a candidate seriously, even if that action is the single click it requires to join a virtual “group.” With five months remaining until the election, I wonder how high the numbers will go.

There’s no easy way to find a list of the biggest lists on Facebook, although a few lists exist. Here’s a sampling that have tasted the rarefied air of 1+ million supporters:

Author: Rob Goodspeed