"Affinity Points" and the Online Campaigns

"Affinity Points" based services aren't new: from "Frequent Flier Miles" to "Xbox Live Achievement Points," they've existed in plenty of different forms. But this is the first time to my knowledge that online based affinity points have launched as part of a major Presidential campaign... It is a newly launched feature on the Barack Obama site.

So on your profile on their site you now get your total points to date and your overall ranking compared to other supporters. Here is their description of the new feature:

"Today we’re unrolling a new way to measure your impact on the campaign: points in the My.BarackObama network. Just about every action you can take on My.BarackObama now will give you points to make it easier to see all the hard work you’re putting in to make this campaign succeed. If you host an event, that’ll show up on your profile and you’ll get 20 points. Write a blog post and you’ll get 15....Adding a points system to My.BarackObama is just a simple way to measure the impact you are having day in and day out on the campaign. You deserve credit and recognition for your involvement and this is just one way to make it clearer how much you’re doing."

It's a smart addition that will likely become a common piece of the web campaign platforms...