What will Obama do with his millions of online 'friends'?

[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/POLITICS/01/12/obama.online.friends/art.obama.kaine.gi.jpg caption="Will President-elect Obama turn over information about his millions-strong online supporter network to Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, the new head of the DNC?"]
WASHINGTON (CNN) - Has President-elect Barack Obama found the person to entrust with his predominantly online network of millions of supporters?

Obama's announcement of Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine to lead the Democratic National Committee suggests the president-elect has plans to reshape his party to resemble Obama's modern, grassroots-oriented presidential campaign.

"Now is the time ... to remake the Democratic Party to meet the challenges of the 21st century," Obama said recently. "And no one is better suited to help lead this effort than ... my good friend Gov. Tim Kaine."

During the campaign, the Obama operation garnered approximately 13 million e-mail addresses, a million sign-ups for the Obama camp's text-messaging service, 2 million participants in the campaign's proprietary social network on MyBarackObama.com, and 5 million supporters on more than 15 other social networking sites including Facebook, according to a report by Washingtonpost.com.

Contact information for Obama's supporters could be used to motivate them to come out and show their support for his policies or to encourage grassroots organizing.

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