After Tom posted his review earlier today I went back and took a closer look at the John Edwards site.  I immediately noticed that Edwards' has dramatically expanded his presence on the social networking sites (see icon on the right). 

Upon close inspection it turns out that the Edwards' campaign is maintaining a presence on an astounding 24 social news/networking sites.  Wow. 

Below is a list from Edwards' site with links to all his accounts:

43Things, del.icio.us, essembly, facebook, flickr, gather, myspace, partybuilder, youtube, orkut, ning, metacafe, revver, yahoo! 360°, blip.tv, CHBN, vSocial, tagworld, collectivex, bebo, care2, hi5, xanga, livejournal

I get it.  The Edwards campaign is really into the whole Web 2.0 thing.  Message delivered.  I understand the power of these networks.  I do.  But 24 accounts?  This just strikes me as sort of ridiculous.

More importantly, I just don't think it is good strategy.

First, I think 24 is way too many options to present a user.   Instead of giving me four or five clear choices (say MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr) I'm overwhelmed with options. 

Second, I think it is better for the campaign to invest in creating robust presences on a few sites than to spread yourself out across 24.  Inevitably, aren't you going to forget to update one of them or not see a comment?  To prove the point, here's a link to the Edwards' campaign Livejournal account, which hasn't been updated since 2004 yet is still highlighted on his new site (bonus screenshot after the jump). 

What do you think?  Do you agree that 24 is too many or is this the way to go with this sort of stuff?