Tech-politics: outlets and resources

Whatever you think of the term “Web 2.0,” (SM-O’Reilly) it’s undeniable that the Internet is changing social and political discourse in ways beyond measurement. Today’s first forum discussed some case studies and offered a look into the future of “Politics 2.0” but two hours of faulty projector-itis was hardly sufficient in exemplifying the many ways in which online social networks, the netroots and YouTube, etc are and may influence the 2008 campaigns.

The forum moderator, Drew Clark of the Center for Public Integrity had an excellent post outlining this last month, titled ”Web 2.0 Gives Birth to Politics 2.0.

Unfortunately, Nancy Scola was delayed unable to in showing us Mark Warner’s Second Life appearance by tech difficulties (you can watch it here) but in the end we saw an animated figure whose shoulders were apparently too broad for him to carry through to Nov. 4, 2008. Barack Obama recently held a meeting in Second Life:

Will the next president be recognized by his/her avatar?

What online communities, applications, and resources have you encountered that could play into ‘08? How might the highly democratized Internet (the www has maintained a democratic and open protocol since its founding in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee) environment affect Americans’ perception of democracy in government?