I love the Internet for deploying things that are right up my personal interest alley. And this time, it's even online journalism/Web 2.0/current events-related, so I get to share it here!
A Web site extension of
Personal Democracy Forum called
TechPresident officially launched today (it was in beta-form last week). The non-partisan site will cover the Web features of the 2008 presidential campaigns. TechPresident's slogan is “How the candidates are using the Web, and how the Web is using them.” The site includes a stock tables-style MySpace friends chart, live chat and more.
According to the site, "The 2008 election will be the first where the Internet will play a central role, not only in terms of how the campaigns use technology, but also in how voter-generated content affects its course. TechPresident.com plans to track all these changes in real-time, covering everything from campaign websites, online advertising and email lists to the postings on YouTube and who's got the fastest growing group of friends on Facebook."
The New York Times today has an
article with more background. The Digital Edge blog has been looking into this for the past few months, as candidates ramp up their campaigns for 2008 in new and interesting ways. See the politics and elections archives for more.