In real time
A chronology of the simultaneous rise of Obama and the Internet.8.04.61 Barack Obama is born, one month after Leonard Kleinrock publishes the seminal essay “Information Flow in Large Communication Nets,” a precursor to the web.
1973 The Internet is born when Google’s future chief Internet evangelist, Stanford assistant professor Vinton Cerf, and Robert Kahn invent it. Sorry, Al.
2005 Former San Francisco Examiner editor David Talbot starts Salon.com, the first general-interest online magazine. Three years later, the site outflanks the mainstream press with its impeachment coverage.
1.17.98 The four-year-old, online-only Drudge Report breaks the Monica Lewinsky scandal—and the fact that Newsweek had the story earlier but killed it.
9.18.98 Furious Berkeley software entrepreneurs Joan Blades and Wes Boyd launch an online petition to stop President Clinton’s impeachment. Within days, hundreds of thousands join MoveOn.
3.27.02 John McCain seals his own doom with a campaign finance reform bill that shifts power to small donors.
10.02.02 “I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars,” says Illinois State Senator Obama as Congress authorizes the Iraq War.
2002 Silicon Valley VC Andy Rappaport and his wife, Deborah, throw in the towel on their hapless political party and throw $6 million at mavericky netroots efforts.
5.26.02 Berkeley resident and former Republican Markos Moulitsas begins his Daily Kos blog with these words: “I am progressive. I am liberal. I make no apologies.”
2003 Howard Dean turns the Internet into the ATM of politics, raising $15 million for his presidential run. Right tool, wrong candidate.
Mid-2004 Obama makes his first visit to Google, which he writes about in his book. He waxes rhapsodic about Ping-Pong and entrepreneurialism—but not about the lack of black and Latino faces in the audience.
7.27.04 After Obama’s keynote at the Democratic National Convention, everyone and their grandma calls him our future first African American president.
11.02.04 MoveOn raises more than $30 million online to help elect a Democrat. Average donation: $50. Bush wins again.
8.06.05 Vacaville mom Cindy Sheehan stokes the antiwar movement with her Bush ranch stakeout, chronicling it on the brand-new HuffingtonPost.com.
2005 The number of PayPal accounts hits 96 million, up 50 percent in a year. America finally feels just fine about sending dough via the web.
8.14.06 YouTube’s first “gotcha” moment: Virginia senator George Allen loses his seat over one word—“macaca.”
11.07.06 Netroots show their first real clout when 5 of the 17 candidates they back win, and the Democrats retake the House.
January 2007 Web 2.0 wunderkind Chris Hughes takes a sabbatical from Facebook to join the Obama campaign.
2.09.07 A day before announcing his candidacy, Obama goes on YouTube to introduce My.BarackObama.com. “Let’s go get to work,” he says.
3.05.07 ParkRidge47 uses his MacBook to mash up Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl ad and broadsides Hillary Clinton. It goes viral.
4.10.07 All the major Democratic presidential candidates discuss the Iraq War in a virtual town-hall meeting hosted by MoveOn.
4.29.07, 12:04 p.m. Obama’s first Twitter post: “Thinking we’re only one signature away from ending the war in Iraq.”
6.13.07 Model Amber Lee Ettinger’s seductive lip-synching of “I’ve got a crush…on Obama” goes live and winds up with 12 million hits on YouTube.
7.23.07 Channeling Gwen Ifill and Jim Lehrer, YouTube users partner with CNN to mediate a debate between Democratic candidates. (They do the same for the Republicans in November.)
8.10.07 The West Coast’s first Camp Obama—2.0 community-organizing training for high-powered campaign volunteers—is held in San Francisco.
8.25.07 Barbecues for Barack, the first group events organized via My.BarackObama’s new Action Center page, take place in more than 25 states.
11.14.07 At his Web 2.0 coronation at Google, Obama announces his tech platform—and sides with Silicon Valley on everything.
1.03.08 The candidate for change wins Iowa (and, unlike Howard Dean four years earlier, refrains from screaming).
1.30.08 John Edwards (and his “oh so pretty” $400 haircuts) steps down. Obama instantly annexes his former rival’s blogosphere base.
2.02.08 Sampling Obama’s speeches, Will.i.am of the Black-Eyed Peas posts the celebrity-filled “Yes We Can” video. It gets 18 million hits.
2.05.08 Obama loses California by 9% to Clinton, but wins San Francisco by 8%.
2.13.08 San Francisco blogger Matthew Honan puts up the “Barack Obama is your new bicycle” site. Don’t ask—just go check it out.
2.27.08 The Obama campaign passes the one-million-donor mark.
3.10.08 Obama Twitters: “In Columbus, MS & wondering how somebody who’s in second place is offering the vice presidency to the person who’s in first place. Vote Tues!”
3.18.08 Obama’s 37-minute speech on race sweeps YouTube, getting 10 times the views of Reverend Wright’s diatribes.
4.11.08 Citizen journalist Mayhill Fowler attends a Pacific Heights fundraiser and posts the infamous Obama quote about “cling[ing] to guns or religion or antipathy” on the Huffington Post.
5.15.08 “Evil Empire” Microsoftians support Clinton, $148K to $120K. “Do No Harm” Googlers go for Obama, $190K to $68K.
6.07.08 Clinton finally, finally, finally calls it quits.
6.09.08 McCain on the VP search: “You get a whole bunch of names, and you…well, basically, it’s a Google,” the candidate says. “You just, you know, what you can find out now on the Internet. It’s remarkable.”
6.17.08 Obama reaches the critical mass of one million Facebook friends.
6.19.08 Obama does the math and says no to public financing—and finishes with three-quarters of a billion dollars, more than Kerry’s and Bush’s campaign coffers combined.
7.30.08 McCain grabs the YouTube limelight with a video comparing Obama to Paris Hilton. Hilton responds with a video comparing McCain to Yoda.
8.01.08 The first of many carpools leaves Berkeley for Reno, filled with volunteers organized via My.BarackObama.
8.17.08 Bay Area supporters donate more than $8 million at a Fairmont San Francisco fundraiser—the campaign’s single highest-grossing event up to this point.
8.17.08 Brave New Films’ video on McCain’s many houses is sent to subscribers and then posted on YouTube. It eventually gets 600,000 hits.
8.23.08 Obama announces his running mate via an early-morning text message.
8.28.08 Obama accepts the Democratic nomination. Afterparty thrown by Google (oh, and Vanity Fair).
9.01.08 With Hurricane Gustav bearing down, Obama emails and texts supporters with an appeal to help victims. Fifteen minutes later, the Red Cross website reportedly crashes.
9.03.08 Sarah Palin sneers at Obama during her acceptance speech at the Republican convention. Within a day, the “community organizer” she disparaged raises $10 million online.
9.08.08 Already a megaphone in the blogosphere and on the radio, Castro Valley’s Rachel Maddow launches her TV show on MSNBC.
9.14.08 Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy; Merrill Lynch agrees to sell to Bank of America; AIG teeters.
9.14.08 Within two days, more than five million viewers race to NBC.com and YouTube to watch Tina Fey’s first stint imitating Sarah Palin.
9.15.08 Proclaims McCain, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.”
9.24.08 Palin’s implosion on Katie Couric’s show gets 1.4 million views on YouTube in a week.
9.29.08 The House rejects a $700 billion bailout plan, and the Dow Jones plunges 777 points—but despite the failing economy, Obama finishes September with a one-month record of $150 million in contributions.
10.02.08 The Obama ’08 app for the iPhone launches and grabs headlines worldwide.
10.06.08 Obama uploads ads to 18 Electronic Arts video games, including Madden NFL ’09 and Guitar Hero.
10.20.08 Big surprise: Google CEO Eric Schmidt endorses Obama.
10.20.08 The McCain campaign encourages voters to make “I’m Joe the Plumber” videos. Two months later, Joe publicly denounces McCain.
10.21.08 In the final two weeks of the campaign, Obama gains 400,000 new Facebook friends.
11.04.08 Obama wins in a landslide, even though a substantial minority of America still believes he’s secretly a Muslim.
11.05.08 Change.gov launches, giving campaign junkies a new web-surfing fix.
11.14.08 Obama announces that his weekly radio address will also be posted on YouTube.
12.30.08 62% of Obama backers will pester friends and fellow citizens to support his policies, a Pew survey finds.
2016 The year the prediction made by Howard Dean’s campaign manager, Joe Trippi, comes true: “Get ready for the campaign that makes Barack Obama’s look like a joke.”
1973 The Internet is born when Google’s future chief Internet evangelist, Stanford assistant professor Vinton Cerf, and Robert Kahn invent it. Sorry, Al.
2005 Former San Francisco Examiner editor David Talbot starts Salon.com, the first general-interest online magazine. Three years later, the site outflanks the mainstream press with its impeachment coverage.
1.17.98 The four-year-old, online-only Drudge Report breaks the Monica Lewinsky scandal—and the fact that Newsweek had the story earlier but killed it.
9.18.98 Furious Berkeley software entrepreneurs Joan Blades and Wes Boyd launch an online petition to stop President Clinton’s impeachment. Within days, hundreds of thousands join MoveOn.
3.27.02 John McCain seals his own doom with a campaign finance reform bill that shifts power to small donors.
10.02.02 “I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars,” says Illinois State Senator Obama as Congress authorizes the Iraq War.
2002 Silicon Valley VC Andy Rappaport and his wife, Deborah, throw in the towel on their hapless political party and throw $6 million at mavericky netroots efforts.
5.26.02 Berkeley resident and former Republican Markos Moulitsas begins his Daily Kos blog with these words: “I am progressive. I am liberal. I make no apologies.”
2003 Howard Dean turns the Internet into the ATM of politics, raising $15 million for his presidential run. Right tool, wrong candidate.
Mid-2004 Obama makes his first visit to Google, which he writes about in his book. He waxes rhapsodic about Ping-Pong and entrepreneurialism—but not about the lack of black and Latino faces in the audience.
7.27.04 After Obama’s keynote at the Democratic National Convention, everyone and their grandma calls him our future first African American president.
11.02.04 MoveOn raises more than $30 million online to help elect a Democrat. Average donation: $50. Bush wins again.
8.06.05 Vacaville mom Cindy Sheehan stokes the antiwar movement with her Bush ranch stakeout, chronicling it on the brand-new HuffingtonPost.com.
2005 The number of PayPal accounts hits 96 million, up 50 percent in a year. America finally feels just fine about sending dough via the web.
8.14.06 YouTube’s first “gotcha” moment: Virginia senator George Allen loses his seat over one word—“macaca.”
11.07.06 Netroots show their first real clout when 5 of the 17 candidates they back win, and the Democrats retake the House.
January 2007 Web 2.0 wunderkind Chris Hughes takes a sabbatical from Facebook to join the Obama campaign.
2.09.07 A day before announcing his candidacy, Obama goes on YouTube to introduce My.BarackObama.com. “Let’s go get to work,” he says.
3.05.07 ParkRidge47 uses his MacBook to mash up Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl ad and broadsides Hillary Clinton. It goes viral.
4.10.07 All the major Democratic presidential candidates discuss the Iraq War in a virtual town-hall meeting hosted by MoveOn.
4.29.07, 12:04 p.m. Obama’s first Twitter post: “Thinking we’re only one signature away from ending the war in Iraq.”
6.13.07 Model Amber Lee Ettinger’s seductive lip-synching of “I’ve got a crush…on Obama” goes live and winds up with 12 million hits on YouTube.
7.23.07 Channeling Gwen Ifill and Jim Lehrer, YouTube users partner with CNN to mediate a debate between Democratic candidates. (They do the same for the Republicans in November.)
8.10.07 The West Coast’s first Camp Obama—2.0 community-organizing training for high-powered campaign volunteers—is held in San Francisco.
8.25.07 Barbecues for Barack, the first group events organized via My.BarackObama’s new Action Center page, take place in more than 25 states.
11.14.07 At his Web 2.0 coronation at Google, Obama announces his tech platform—and sides with Silicon Valley on everything.
1.03.08 The candidate for change wins Iowa (and, unlike Howard Dean four years earlier, refrains from screaming).
1.30.08 John Edwards (and his “oh so pretty” $400 haircuts) steps down. Obama instantly annexes his former rival’s blogosphere base.
2.02.08 Sampling Obama’s speeches, Will.i.am of the Black-Eyed Peas posts the celebrity-filled “Yes We Can” video. It gets 18 million hits.
2.05.08 Obama loses California by 9% to Clinton, but wins San Francisco by 8%.
2.13.08 San Francisco blogger Matthew Honan puts up the “Barack Obama is your new bicycle” site. Don’t ask—just go check it out.
2.27.08 The Obama campaign passes the one-million-donor mark.
3.10.08 Obama Twitters: “In Columbus, MS & wondering how somebody who’s in second place is offering the vice presidency to the person who’s in first place. Vote Tues!”
3.18.08 Obama’s 37-minute speech on race sweeps YouTube, getting 10 times the views of Reverend Wright’s diatribes.
4.11.08 Citizen journalist Mayhill Fowler attends a Pacific Heights fundraiser and posts the infamous Obama quote about “cling[ing] to guns or religion or antipathy” on the Huffington Post.
5.15.08 “Evil Empire” Microsoftians support Clinton, $148K to $120K. “Do No Harm” Googlers go for Obama, $190K to $68K.
6.07.08 Clinton finally, finally, finally calls it quits.
6.09.08 McCain on the VP search: “You get a whole bunch of names, and you…well, basically, it’s a Google,” the candidate says. “You just, you know, what you can find out now on the Internet. It’s remarkable.”
6.17.08 Obama reaches the critical mass of one million Facebook friends.
6.19.08 Obama does the math and says no to public financing—and finishes with three-quarters of a billion dollars, more than Kerry’s and Bush’s campaign coffers combined.
7.30.08 McCain grabs the YouTube limelight with a video comparing Obama to Paris Hilton. Hilton responds with a video comparing McCain to Yoda.
8.01.08 The first of many carpools leaves Berkeley for Reno, filled with volunteers organized via My.BarackObama.
8.17.08 Bay Area supporters donate more than $8 million at a Fairmont San Francisco fundraiser—the campaign’s single highest-grossing event up to this point.
8.17.08 Brave New Films’ video on McCain’s many houses is sent to subscribers and then posted on YouTube. It eventually gets 600,000 hits.
8.23.08 Obama announces his running mate via an early-morning text message.
8.28.08 Obama accepts the Democratic nomination. Afterparty thrown by Google (oh, and Vanity Fair).
9.01.08 With Hurricane Gustav bearing down, Obama emails and texts supporters with an appeal to help victims. Fifteen minutes later, the Red Cross website reportedly crashes.
9.03.08 Sarah Palin sneers at Obama during her acceptance speech at the Republican convention. Within a day, the “community organizer” she disparaged raises $10 million online.
9.08.08 Already a megaphone in the blogosphere and on the radio, Castro Valley’s Rachel Maddow launches her TV show on MSNBC.
9.14.08 Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy; Merrill Lynch agrees to sell to Bank of America; AIG teeters.
9.14.08 Within two days, more than five million viewers race to NBC.com and YouTube to watch Tina Fey’s first stint imitating Sarah Palin.
9.15.08 Proclaims McCain, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.”
9.24.08 Palin’s implosion on Katie Couric’s show gets 1.4 million views on YouTube in a week.
9.29.08 The House rejects a $700 billion bailout plan, and the Dow Jones plunges 777 points—but despite the failing economy, Obama finishes September with a one-month record of $150 million in contributions.
10.02.08 The Obama ’08 app for the iPhone launches and grabs headlines worldwide.
10.06.08 Obama uploads ads to 18 Electronic Arts video games, including Madden NFL ’09 and Guitar Hero.
10.20.08 Big surprise: Google CEO Eric Schmidt endorses Obama.
10.20.08 The McCain campaign encourages voters to make “I’m Joe the Plumber” videos. Two months later, Joe publicly denounces McCain.
10.21.08 In the final two weeks of the campaign, Obama gains 400,000 new Facebook friends.
11.04.08 Obama wins in a landslide, even though a substantial minority of America still believes he’s secretly a Muslim.
11.05.08 Change.gov launches, giving campaign junkies a new web-surfing fix.
11.14.08 Obama announces that his weekly radio address will also be posted on YouTube.
12.30.08 62% of Obama backers will pester friends and fellow citizens to support his policies, a Pew survey finds.
2016 The year the prediction made by Howard Dean’s campaign manager, Joe Trippi, comes true: “Get ready for the campaign that makes Barack Obama’s look like a joke.”
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