Micah Sifry has a great example of how the Obama campaign staff crushed a volunteer that had generated a huge following on MySpace. When the site Joe Anthony had sweated over reached epic proportions, the Obama campaign decided they needed to take control. So rather than hire the guy (or even fly out to meet him to interview/qualify him for the job) or even pay him a nominal sum ($40 k or so, for years of labor, a bargain no matter how you cut it), they went to MySpace (a company they were paying oodles to to help them promote the campaign at levels much less than Anthony’s site) to seize control of the it.
Robb has a new book out “Brave New War“, worth checking out.
OTOH, he’s done the right thing on debate media, via Lessig.