shouting loudly

Over at DailyKos, Markos Moulitsas offers a spirited defense of what I term the theory of “ideological congruence” in partisan technology adoption. There’s a reason that conservatives have fallen so far behind liberals on the technology front, and it truly is cultural. Go read Wired or Ars Technica or The Verge or any gadget blog [...]

The Democratic Party has a clear technology advantage over the GOP right now.  Many are now asking a single question: “is this a permanent advantage?” I’m pretty confident that the advantage won’t be permanent.  In my book, The MoveOn Effect, I offer a theory of “outparty innovation incentives.”  Simply put, new technological opportunities sync well [...]

Beck kind of has a new album out.  But only kind of.  He’s partnered with the folks at McSweeney’s* to produce “Song Reader,” a collection of sheet music that fans can play and upload themselves.  Will Burns at Forbes.com raves that “It’s more than an album. It’s an invitation.” “Beck fans the world over will [...]

Jaron Lanier is at it again.  Two weeks ago, at Personal Democracy Forum, Lanier unveiled the central thesis of his next book: computer networks are causing the demise of the American middle class, threatening Democracy as we know it.  New information technology has exacerbated the distribution of wealth.  The Internet has undermined a set of [...]

At Personal Democracy Forum last week, I saw a very interesting panel titled “The Lean Startup Model for Politics” (check out Jackie Mahandra’s cool visual notes here).  I was a little amused that the whole panel was premised on an article I’d read in last month’s Wired magazine, “Upstart Eric Ries Has the Stage and [...]

We’re in trouble. The future of the internet is in danger, and if that danger comes to pass, it’s both unhealthy for and a very bad indicator of the health of our democracy. Congress is already very close to passing companion bills to censor the internet, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA, H.R. 3261) and [...]

There are a lot of different ways for advocacy groups to use their e-mail lists.  They can mobilize. They can fundraise. They can educate or persuade. They can request feedback or user-generated content submissions. They can announce upcoming events.  Last year, I conducted a study of netroots and legacy organizations on the left, and found [...]

Eli Pariser, the former Executive Director of MoveOn, has a new book out on the social impacts of the internet.  It’s quite good – reminiscent of Cass Sunstein’s Republic.com and Infotopia, in that it is utterly readable, carefully constructed, and critical in tenor.  The important difference between Pariser’s book and Sunstein’s books is temporal in [...]

Note: I’ll be spending the next few months writing a book about the new generation of internet-mediated political groups.  This post will be my first “book blog,” in which I try out new ideas that I’m planning to include in the manuscript.  Book blog pieces will be less tied to the politics-of-the-day, and will be [...]

Jake Brewer has a fantastic essay up on the Huffington Post today.  Go read it.  Now.  Seriously. You back?  Okay, here’s what I want to add: The puzzle Jake identifies isn’t actually about digital activism.  Or, more specifically, digital activism is only the latest instantiation of the puzzle.  I told this story at Netroots Nation [...]