Such was the spellbinding late-night nature of last Tuesday evening that by the time Adam Tinworth took the Online stage 36 hours later I was still suffering a dizzying election hangover.

Unable to shut out images of state county maps and David Dimbleby’s crucifixion, I desperately tried to pick out a few key lectural words to keep up to speed. And the one that stuck out was ‘traffic’.

Unfortunately, all that did was conjure yet more electoral flashbacks, in particular the image of tens upon thousands of delirious Obama lovers being shepherded into Grant Park to await their hero’s speech, rampaging across the grass like something out of a Braveheart.

It seemed though to sum up his entire journey to the Oval Office: endless hordes of multiracial, multicultural, multi-everything people being herded to him in enthusiastic droves.

And there is only one place you can drum up that kind of overwhelming momentum without borders or boundaries, and that’s the internet. 

Obama’s use of the web may be no secret, but the scale of his online achievements has been overshadowed by those who cite economic meltdown or McCain’s taste in mates as being behind Barack’s victory.

He was not the first politician to use the internet to make a bit of extra cash and a few more friends, but he is the first to fully exploit web 2.0, as the NY Times rightly notes.

Unlike both his predecessors and contemporaries, Obama was pro-active from before even Day One in squeezing every drop from the web, rather than the reactive approach of other would-be nominees, or the utterly inactive stance of his opponent.

When Obama took to a podium over 21 months ago to announce his running for the presidency, a small gaggle of his supporters quietly moved through the audience as he spoke. In one sitting, they collected hundreds of email addresses from crowd members, who were then contacted and urged to email their own family and friends, and so the networking continued relentlessly. 

By the time of his victory, Obama practically owned the internet.

We as pending journalists will have to take the same approach – Web 2.0 is not a case of keeping up with the game but of actually going out and playing it. While other politicians laid their lot out there and waited for the votes and cash to roll in, Obama hunted them down mercilessly with his Blackberry. That’s change we need, people!