I didn't go to South by Southwest (SXSW), the annual interactive festival in Austin, Texas, but I lot of my friends and colleagues did. However, I know what time many of them landed, where they were flying from, where they've been staying and eating, and even what sessions they've been attending. How do I know all this? They've been Twittering it, of course.

The Web on the Candidates

Does the performance of a candidate's web page help determine their online effectiveness and the amount of online donations they bring in? Katherine Noyes at TechNewsWorld reports that 62% of respondents to a "nationwide survey" "said they'd abandon the online donation process after two unsuccessful attempts, and 67 percent said they would tell other people if the donation process didn't work well," and "of the 43 percent of survey respondents who had already visited or who planned to visit candidate Web sites, 58 percent said they believe there will be a correlation between the candidate with the best-performing Web site and the ultimate winner of the presidential race." However, these stats ignore the actual content of the web sites -- are candidates blogging, using video, or Twittering? Are they using social networking sites? While a site's poor performance can undeniably aggravate users and discourage them from donating, there also other online factors to consider when judging a candidates' online presence.

The Candidates on the Web

John Edwards has launched a new web site called Support the Troops. End the War, with an overlong url to boot, that is calling for Americans to... support the troops and end the war with a series of actions over Memorial Day weekend. The site begins, "As citizens, we honor and support our troops for their service and sacrifice. As Americans, we are blessed by that sacrifice and support, which keeps us safe and keeps us strong. As patriots, we call on our government to support our troops in the most important way it can - by ending this war and bringing them home," and provides 10 things you can do over Memorial Day weekend toward that end. Otherwise, the site is mostly a place to gather email addresses, though it also provides a way to search for Memorial Day activities near you. However, I live in one of the most populated spots in the country, and the nearest activity ("Donation") was over nine miles away, followed by an activity ("Call/email President Bush and your Congressional Representatives") almost 29 miles away.

Hitwise and Compete show Barack Obama, Mike Huckabee, and John McCain getting the most online attention in the runup to the New Hampshire primary; Obama is getting more buzz in the blogs than Hillary Clinton; Mark Glaser considers whether online support is beginning to translate to offline votes; a fun new site called Politweets aggregates Twitter posts about the candidates; Mitt Headroom rears his robotic head; and Katherine Seelye writes that the candidates are racing to keep up with demand for online content.

Journalists, bloggers, pollsters, and pundits flagellate themselves for being so wrong about New Hampshire; Glenn Greenwald calls the media "adolescent, coddled narcissists"; one blogger thinks Memeorandum is the best way to get election news; Why Tuesday continues to get the cold shoulder from Mitt Romney; Barack Obama is the most-mentioned candidate on Twitter; Obama and Clinton release post-New Hampshire fundraising numbers; and Bill Richardson drops out, yet there are still six GOP candidates!

Jay Rosen explains why campaign coverage sucks, but does it nicely; Zack Exley gets in-depth about the Clinton campaign's field operation; political journalists are Twittering; allegations of voter suppression from the Clinton campaign in Nevada are gaining traction; expat Democrats can now vote in the primaries online; Micah Sifry schools Brian Lehrer on online political video; Duncan Hunter drops out; and Fred Thompson is still in it for now, though is obits are being written anyway.

Rounding up last night's results, explanations, and prognostications; what's CNN? Online politicos tracked the action with Twitter, Google Maps, Flickr, and YouTube instead; Hillary is favored by Microsoft employees, Barack by Google: Hillsoft vs. Goobama?; Voices without Votes gives us international impressions of the race; what do we see when we take a closer look at John McCain?; and online advertising is stuck in the dark ages.

MoveOn members funnel more than $500,000 to the Obama campaign, end send out hundreds of thousands of GOTV notes; a new crop of nonprofits are creating political messaging, blurring the line between advocacy and electoral politics; a chart shows the most popular candidates on Twitter; a sneaky move to redirect folks looking for Mitt Romney (who are they?) to Mike Huckabee's site; the cult of the Obama or a genuine movement?; unexciting headlines about moderately interesting things; and the Obama campaign wants to control the fight against superdelegates.

Judging the efficacy of a Google bomb campaign against John McCain; three liberal blogs ask readers if they should endorse a candidate before the nominee emerges; another piece about why Twitter matters; illustrating the strength of viral video; congrats to Josh Marshall on his Polk Award and NYT profile; Hillary Clinton launches Delegate Hub, controls the tubes; John McCain continuing to generate little online enthusiasm.

What a night! Clinton is victorious in Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island; our charts show an Obama rise despite the real-world polls; John McCain is now the nominee, and Mike Huckabee is out; McCain's splash page mimics a recent Oscar winner; Obama's site served undecideds better than Clinton's; a petition asking Hillary to step aside might have to be scrapped; Twitter saved the night, again; Eric Boehlert is impressed with a netroots letter-sending campaign; Jay-Z robocalls for Obama; and a major flap about Obama's skin tone is just ugly.

New technologies that may impact '08; one GOP consultant's Amazon wishlist; a relationship between online video and fundraising?; a peek at Election 2024; McCain's catatonic blog; the non-existent link between experience and presidential greatness; YouTube expands YouChoose; MoveOn gears up for '08; Mindy Finn on her Romney role; and a new networked investigative resource.