Notes from the PDF afternoon: From the "How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Blogosphere" panel, Roger L. Simon of Pajamas Media announced about the launch of "Politics Central," a new feature of his news/blog aggregation site. He admits that "we made a bunch of mistakes" in PM's first incarnation, and promises that Politics Central that will "get past the name-calling." Elizabeth Edwards announcing the launch of the new OneAmerica site...
New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer just finished giving a rousing address on the need for universal broadband access. My favorite sound-bite: In 1934, the federal government passed the "Universal Service Act," which guaranteed dial tone to every single residential address in the country, regardless of location. The Internet is the "dial tone" of our time and it is time we guarantee every citizen of New York State the right to access it and use it to advance themselves and advance the economy of this state. You can read the full text here. Tags: pdf2006 Eliot Spitzer...
I don't expect to live-blog my own conference, but with 15 minutes to show-time, I wanted to note that others are already on the case. Dina Kaplan of BlipTV has posted some video interviews she did of speakers at a pre-conference cocktail party (search here for "personal democracy forum"). And Steve Garfield has already posted some fun photos of the party on his Flickr account. Roger Simon of Pajamas Media is blogging about his visit to PDF, as is Chris Nolan of Spot-on. If you are blogging the conference, please use the tag "pdf2006." And have a great day! Tag: pdf2006...
Style beats substance. Form tops function. Fantasy beats reality. But truth tops lies. And love beats hate. Hard not to be fascinated by the new Google Trends, which allows you to compare search patterns on several terms at a time....
We're pleased to announce that Elizabeth Edwards will be joining this year's Personal Democracy Forum for a keynote conversation on the Internet, politics and the future. We're very excited that she'll be joining us and looking forward to the dialogue. (I bet you didn't know she has a blog.)...
The detailed, minute-by-minute schedule for this year's third annual Personal Democracy Forum is now live. We've also added a bunch of exciting speakers, including Chellie Pingree, the president of Common Cause; Roger Simon, the co-founder of Pajamas Media; Bill McIntyre of Grassroots Enterprise and Juan Proano of PlusThree. Two additional highlights: Due to popular demand, we've decided to add a plenary debate to the PDF program between leading advocates on both sides of the "net neutrality" issue. They are Susan Crawford, professor at Cardoza Law School and a member of the ICANN board; Stephen Effros, for thirty years a leading spokesman for the cable telecommunications industry; Timothy Karr, campaign director for Free Press; and Chris Wolf, co-chair of the Hands Off...
Today marks the public launch of the Sunlight Foundation and one of its flagship projects, Congresspedia. Full disclosure is warranted here, and not just because that's the goal of Sunlight: Along with my partner Andrew Rasiej, I have been consulting with Sunlight since December. The goal of the foundation is to use revolutionary power of the Internet and new information technology to enable citizens to learn more about what Congress and their elected representatives are doing, and thus help reduce corruption, ensure greater transparency and accountability by government, and foster public trust in the vital institutions of democracy. We've worked hard on this, and think we've come up with some fruitful ways to use the internet and the power of citizen networking...
It's time to stand up and be counted, because the corporations who still think of the internet as an "information highway" want the power to set up toll booths and private speedways for their own content or that of high-paying customers, to the detriment of all of us. As Vint Cerf pointed out in a letter to Congressmen Joe Barton and John Dingell, whose Energy and Commerce Committee is pushing legislation drafted by the telcos that would wreak havoc: The Internet was designed with no gatekeepers over new content or services. The Internet is based on a layered, end-to-end model that allows people at each level of the network to innovate free of any central control. By placing intelligence at...
"TV and high-priced hired-gun TV ad makers no longer rule campaigns. Bloggers have taken their place." That's the judgment of veteran political journalist Paul Bass, surveying the state of the Democratic Senate primary in Connecticut, where maverick candidate Ned Lamont is challenging three-termer Joe Lieberman. He writes: A virus is dogging three-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman. One of its gestation spots is www.youtube.com, a web site where anyone can post a homemade video. Go there and search for "Ned Lamont." He's the liberal Greenwich businessman staging a spirited challenge to Lieberman for the Democratic nomination. Up spring a queue of videos posted by bloggers who love Lamont and despise Lieberman. There's Ned on WFSB-TV. Ned giving a speech in Southbury. Ned on...
Britt Blaser has a fascinating blog post today on his ongoing effort to develop ORGware, which he shorthands as "the 'Dean Done Right platform, our campaign-in-a-box, or 'Moveon Done Right', as a knowledgeable friend advised me to label it." Today, he offers a capsule summary of how he and others on Dean's campaign tech team cobbled together an early version of this vision, which is useful if you haven't been paying attention to Britt's ongoing efforts since then. But I recommend taking a look at his post mainly for what he illustrates about the value of an organization being able to use ORGware (still in development) to see exactly how they are doing with their blogging. Lots of groups and campaigns...
