((("Personal Democracy Forum" – a buffalo stampede of the new political class of online pundits. "McCain is aware of the Internet."
How about the voters in Peoria?)))
http://www.personaldemocracyforum.com/blog/entry/1976/daily_digest_pdf_08_roundup_crickets_seem_to_greet_mccain_is_aware_of_the_internet_meme
(...)we're going to go out on a limb and argue that PdF '08 might be the most mediated – videod, Twittered, blogged – conference in all of recorded history.
Some evidence in favor:
CNN iReport has posted video interviews with several attendees, including such techies as Esther Dyson, Craig Newmark, Robert Scoble, taken in the main conference hall.
Via Qik, Micah Sifry streamed live from the conference hall with groups of conference goers including writers Jonathan Alter, David Corn, and Nancy Watzman; Dan Cantor of the Working Families Party; Ben Relles and Amber Ettinger of "Obama Girl" fame.
CNET News.com's Caroline McCarthy caught up with Larry Lessig to go deeper on his taken on the history of inside-the-Beltway corruption he spoke about in his keynote: "I think you see this cycle of reform and then reprise, and reform and reprise. And I hope we're seeing the beginning of another reform cycle."
(((I have to wonder why political parties are so weak. Parties used to be the analog social networks of analog government hierarchies.
The parties did a lot of the brainwork of debate and policy. Nowadays parties seem like dusty appendages of the fund-raisers and campaign managers.)))YouTube's news and politics editor Steve Grove blogs about what he learned about online video from his panel of "YouTube greats," Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films, Josh Marshall of TPMtv, and Matthew Sheffield of NewsBusted. One tip Steve picked up: "Understand the ecosystem," i.e., recognize the need of both blogs and broadcast media to constantly fill their news holes. (((You know where the real "news holes" are? In dead newspapers. Who on earth is going to replace the local political vitality that used to come out of the local press?)))
After spending some time at PdF with Tom Steinberg of MySociety, a U.K.-based civic engagement effort, Open Left's Matt Stoller comes to the conclusion that what we're witnessing in the U.S. '08 presidential race "is not really a 21st century campaign." (((It's still early in the century – the LATE 21st century campaign is presumably carried out off rafts and canoes in the drowned shallows of
Greenhouse Washington.)))The Caucus, the New York Times politics blog has a look at the "The Elizabeth Edwards Show," the unplanned peek into the home and lives of the Edwardses of North Carolina that Skype provided during Monday's keynote. InformationWeek calls John Edwards's surprise appearance "Political 'Candid Camera.'": "without the technology behind Skype, I doubt I ever would have seen anyone nominated for vice president come home from work without the self-consciousness and self-editing that usually comes from knowing you're on camera." (((That actually seems like an interesting development, though I don't doubt that the Edwards living room was carefully tidied so as to look all rootsy and informal.)))
BetaNews looks at the conference through the lens of its "rebooting democracy" theme.
According to one tracking service, the hashtag "#pdf2008" was Twittered – to gerbils or otherwise – about 1,000 times.
And that's the tip of the iceberg...
