dangerous thoughts

For those interested in how technology is changing politics, I would encourage you to check out a new site called techPresident.com.

An offshoot of the Personal Democracy Forum, techPresident.com bills itself as a new group blog that covers how the 2008 presidential candidates are using the web, and vice versa, how content generated by voters is affecting the campaign. Per the founders:

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 MySpace.

A recent post on the site that caught my eye was a study by Performics (DoubleClick's market research arm) on how Americans plan to learn about the 2008 Presidential campaign. According to the survey, 42 percent of Americans expect they will seek out
more information from the Internet in 2008 than they did in the 2004 presidential election.

That's a remarkable jump, and goes to show that the major candidates are not scrambling in these early days to maximize their Web presence and outreach out of faddish folly, but to keep up with the rapidly-advancing curve. Will be fascinating to watch the online race evolve and see how the campaigns fare in hitting this moving target.