Jack and Jill ended their open relationship, your roommate uploaded pictures from the weekend and Barack Obama’s favorite movie is “Casablanca”.

Facebook’s news feeds are intended to share user’s recent activity. Now, users can learn about their Facebook friends in Washington too. More than 500 United States politicians have created Facebook accounts as part of their campaigning agendas.

Facebook also created a U.S. politics application, and users have certainly responded. More than one million users have added the application, and nearly 300,000 have participated in at least one debate group.

“Facebook presents a new and powerful opportunity for mobilization,” said Jeff Mondak, political science professor. “It’s an important campaign mechanism, but with the mechanism there has to be content.”

By downloading the political application, users can join debate groups, view politicians’ Facebook pages, learn how many people on Facebook support a candidate and keep up with fresh reports from every campaign. Groups discussing the role of faith in the presidency, gender in the election, the electoral system and troop levels in Iraq are heavily populated with users.

Politicians including Sen. Ted Kennedy, D.-Mass., former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, have created Facebook pages.

Still, among all of the politicians on the social network, Obama is by far the most popular with more than two million supporters.

Politicians’ pages are mirror designs of normal users. They can share personal information, display wall posts and upload photos.

Danielle Kouba, junior in AHS, said she believes that politicians on Facebook could certainly have an influence on the younger generation of voters.

“I think it’ll get the politics out there to the younger crowd,” Kouba said. “It’ll get people interested and aware.”

Facebook first allowed politicians to get involve with Facebook during the 2006 midterm election. The Web site then teamed up with ABC News the following year in preparation for the 2008 presidential election.

Christopher Colantino, senior in LAS and Facebook user, understands the utilization of Facebook but disagrees with its ability to induce undecided voters.

“When I worked with the Giuliani primary campaign, we used Facebook as a method of contacting members,” Colantino said. “It’s a great organization tool, but I don’t really see it as having much of an impact on the outcome of the election.”

The partnership allowed Facebook users to take part in the primary Democratic and Republican presidential debates. Participants expressed their thoughts of the televised event in online debate groups, and moderator Charles Gibson formed some questions to the candidates based on users’ comments.

“The actual candidates have their own Web sites that are more important to the campaign than Facebook,” Colantino said. “Someone on Facebook might learn a fact or two from the updating factoid, but that’s about it.”

Facebook has additionally made voting easier for its users. Registration forms are available on the site, and users have the ability to send their friends registration reminders.

Mondak and Colantino both agree the best way for candidates to mobilize and sway voters is to physically come to campus. Yet the Facebook phenomenon is still worth examining.

“Candidates use Facebook as a way to contact people and get them to turn out for face to face meetings,” Mondak said.