YouTube Used in UK Vote as Parties Follow Obama

Gordon Brown and David Cameron's campaigns are taking a leaf out of Barack Obama's book.

With the U.K. election, which must be held by June 6, likely to be the closest since 1974, strategists for Prime Minister Brown and Conservative leader Cameron are trying to use social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Google Inc.'s YouTube as effectively as U.S. President Obama did in his 2008 presidential campaign. "For the first time in a while the campaign actually matters, therefore the media matters," said Charlie Beckett, the director of the London School of Economics' Polis research center. "Activists and media people look at Twitter." Although U.K. campaign rules make a large-scale import of the U.S. model difficult, the two parties are seeking to reach voters in new ways, including using online networking tools that were largely credited for Obama's organizational and fundraising success.