Tracking the war of words between John McCain and Barack Obama enables us for the first time to measure which messages are picked up the most across the Web and which position statements are attracting the largest audiences.

Please see our previous post to review our methodology, and you can see TechCrunch coverage here. Download a .pdf copy of the full study.

Key Findings (through August 24th)

• Obama’s messages continue to draw a larger online audience, but McCain closed the gap by almost 10% in the last two weeks. Obama’s messages received an estimated 38 million page views, compared to 36 million for McCain. Two factors appear to be driving McCain’s comeback.

1. McCain surged in the blogosphere which has been an area of Obama’s strength. Almost 350 new bloggers picked up McCain’s message, a 30% advantage over Obama. This translated into a 2:1 blog page view advantage across U.S. visitors over the last two weeks and ate into Obama’s overall audience lead in blogs.
2. McCain’s negative campaigning appears to be paying off. Obama attacks received an estimated 2.8 Million page views August-to-date – almost 3x as many as attacks on McCain over the same time period.

• Despite allegations of media favoritism, McCain’s words are featured 80% more often on news sites than Obama’s. McCain beats Obama by almost 3 to 1 on the major networks’ websites (Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN).

• McCain’s messages continue to be picked up more from his position statements (55%) than his speeches (45%) Obama’s messages are picked up more often through his speeches (67%) than his position statements (33%).

• Each candidate’s position on the economy is now the most widely read across the web with Obama’s Economic position leap-frogging his Iraq policy for the first time.

• In just 3 weeks, Obama’s Berlin speech has gone viral and has been viewed an estimated 2 million times - off of Obama’s official site.

True or False? Attributor Investigates Election 2008’s Conventional Wisdom Conventional Wisdom: The news media is in love with Barack Obama and gives his messages a disproportionate amount of coverage.

Attributor says . . . False

McCain continues to trounce Obama on major news site coverage. He’s out-matching Obama almost 3 to 1 on the major networks’ websites (Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN). When local and national newspaper and magazine websites are factored in, McCain still outdoes Obama almost 2 to 1.

Conventional Wisdom: Obama and McCain are attacking each other with negative messages at the same rate.

Attributor says . . . False

Within the last two weeks, criticism of Obama has surged with his words being attacked more than twice as much as McCain. An “attack match represents an issue or speech that is matched on a site known to be unfriendly to the candidate. We matched McCain against the 50 most trafficked liberal sites and Obama against the 50 most trafficked conservative sites to get these numbers.

Conventional Wisdom: Americans discount negative campaigning as “politics” and don’t pay much attention to it.

Attributor says . . . False

The increased negative campaigning on McCain’s behalf appears to be paying off. Americans are reading the attacks in significant numbers. Month-to-date, there were an estimate 2.8M views of attacks on Obama compared to 1.1M views of attacks on McCain.

Conventional Wisdom: By virtue of his appeal to a younger demographic, Obama is reaching a larger audience online.

Attributor says . . .True - but it’s getting much closer

Obama’s speeches and position statements continue to attract a larger online audience due to his strength in the blogsosphere. McCain’s recent gains in blogs are aiding his comeback and likely aligned with his more aggressive online blog tactics.

Please see our previous post to review our methodology. Download a .pdf copy of the full study.

The battle between John McCain and Barack Obama is a war of words. What makes this election different is how far and fast those words can go. The Internet accelerates the reach of the candidates’ messages through online news media, and blogging amplifies the voices of both sides’ supporters. Attributor is tracking how McCain and Obama’s messages move across the Internet and, for the first time, has measured the size of the online audience reading these messages.

This is the first of a series of regular insights Attributor will be sharing on the election between now and November 4^th. Download a .pdf of the full study here.

What we did:

• Used the Attributor platform to capture each candidate’s key issues and speeches as stated on their official web sites: www.johnmccain.com and www.barackobama.com.

• Tracked the distribution of each candidate’s words across 25 Billion+ pages, including blogs and social networks, looking for unique web pages containing matches of their speeches and official position statements.

• Analyzed and categorized the individual sites and pages containing the candidates’ messages.

• Using Attributor’s Audience Finder™ Technology, estimated the reach of each candidate’s messages across the Internet.

Key Findings:

• McCain is holding his own online. The overall audience viewing each candidate’s message was virtually the same with each totaling over 65 Million page views.

• McCain’s campaign messages are more likely to be picked up from his position statements (64%) than his speeches (36%) Obama’s messages are picked up more often through his speeches (71%) than his position statements (29%)

• Despite allegations of media favoritism, McCain’s words are featured 112% more often on news sites than Obama’s. In July there were over 20 Million views of McCain’s messages on news sites.

• Obama is dominating the blogosphere with over 12 Million views of his messages occurring on blogs in July. Twice as many bloggers repeat his messages than those of McCain. Obama owns a similar advantage on social networking sites like Face book and MySpace.

True or False? Attributor Investigates Election 2008’s Conventional Wisdom

Conventional Wisdom: The news media is in love with Barack Obama and gives his messages a disproportionate amount of coverage.

Attributor says . . . False

Perhaps this is true when it comes to television or print. But when it comes to coverage of each candidate’s position statements or speeches, McCain is trouncing Obama. His lead on major network web sites (Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN) is almost 4 to 1.

Conventional Wisdom: Obama’s youthful support translates into higher support across social networks.

Attributor says . . . True

Across social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, Obama’s messages are picked up by more than 2 to 1.

Conventional Wisdom: Obama’s grassroots efforts have resulted in a substantial lead across the blogosphere.

Attributor says . . . True

Obama has an 86% edge in bloggers who incorporate his messages into blog posts. Obama’s Berlin speech fueled a 10% jump in commentary across the Blogosphere.

Conventional Wisdom: Obama’s message is best delivered through speeches, while McCain’s strength is with his position on issues.

Attributor says . . . True

Obama’s speeches are being picked up on the Web much more than his position statements. The opposite is true for McCain.

Conventional Wisdom: By virtue of his appeal to a younger demographic, Obama is reaching a larger audience online.

Attributor says . . . False - it’s virtually a dead heat.

Our Audience Finder technology shows that Obama’s advantage across the blogs and social media give him a slight advantage over McCain overall. McCain is staying close via his reach on traditional news sites.

In July, Obama’s messages reached slightly over 65 million page views whereas McCain’s estimated page views were just short of 65 million.

Obama’s reach across the blogosphere was more than double than McCain’s in July.

McCain enjoyed an 86% reach advantage on Web sites in July.

Stay tuned for regular insights on the 2008 Election from the Attributor blog.