The Pentagon has long been one of the most net-savvy of all government departments, especially in its dealings with the media. (Take for example its posting of verbatim transcripts of reporters' interviews with top DOD officials, as a way for the public to judge whether reporters are being fair in their articles.) But this Washington Post article by Thomas Ricks suggests that while the military is trying to convince the public that the battle for Fallujah was a success (using a 59-page Powerpoint presentation called "Telling the Fallujah Story to the World"), a part-time blogger is matching them click-for-click with a far more critical take with a site called "Fallujah in Pictures: The War You Won't See on TV."

Ricks reports:

"As far as the blog site, this is information operations at its finest," said one Marine officer who has served in Iraq. "IO is about influence, and this piece tries to influence people by depicting the human cost of war."

Unfortunately, Harvard restricts access to its students during class hours, so attendees at the "Votes, Bits and Bytes" conference won't have wifi until Saturday's sessions. But, if you ask the conference organizers nicely, they'll give you a pass. So here I am, sitting in the august Ames Courtroom at Harvard Law School, listening to Hossein Derakhshan (Hoder, a leading Iranian blogger) give a fascinating talk about the role of blogs in his home country (he lives in Toronto).

Blogs in Iran, he says, function as a) windows into and outside a closed culture; b) bridges, between men and women, older and younger generations, and voters and politicians; and c) as cafes, where people can talk to each other outside of the government controlled media.

Before him, Pippa Norris of Harvard University gave a talk about the limited impact of e-voting in England (details on her blog). And Tom Sander reported on his research into Meetup attendees.

Scott Heiferman, the CEO of Meetup (and a member of PDF's advisory board, I should add), just gave a terrific keynote address on the future of connected politics. Here's his vision: We're going from flash mobs and bricks-and-mortar organizations to flash, emergent, people-powered, long-lasting, open, influential, agile, chapter-based, institutions/organizations/unions that have card-carrying members and meet regularly face-to-face to act on common concerns. He called this the "Napsterization of organization." (I told Mary Hodder, sitting to my right, that she should ask for a fee--she grinned and said she'd take a nickel.)

We need a "Constitution-wizard," he said, in other words tools that help people create such new kinds of powerful federations. One step in that direction is going to come from Meetup, which starting next week, Heiferman announced, will allow all the members of a Meetup category group (Pug owners, Townhall.com fans, knitters, or the fastest growing Meetup category of stay-at-home-mom's) to talk to members of the same group, worldwide.

It's a little hard to understand everything Oh Yeon-ho is saying about the role of OhMyNews in the transformation of South Korean politics, because he has a strong accent. But the gist is clear: by introducing the new/old concept of "every citizen is a reporter" and creating a Internet-based news site that celebrates c itizen journalism, an authoritarian society and media culture has been turned upside down. (Details on its impact on the 2002 election can be found here.)

He started with about 750 citizen reporters and there are now over 75,000. People are paid for their reporting, but top rate is just abut $20 a piece. Why do they write: for a large audience, a ton of feedback and to change their country. One recent article by a constitutional scholar critiquing an anti-democratic court decision generated $30,000 in tips from readers!

In general, OhMyNews' model differs from traditional New York Times journalism in the following ways, he said:

Old media thinks of itself as a pipe delivering stories to readers; OhMyNews sees itself as a playground for readers.

In old media, "I produce, you consume and leave." In the new model, "we produce, consume and stay."

In old media, feedback is limited. In the new model, readers can write, comment and give money to reporters!

Quoting from Editor: Myself - Hoder, No more blogging and net-socializing:

Friends in Iran, journalists and technicians, are saying that judiciary officials have ordered all major ISP to filter all blogging services including PersianBlog, BlogSpot, Blogger, BlogSky, and even BlogRolling. They have also ordered to filter Orkut, Yahoo Personal and some other popular dating and social networking websites.

Joi Ito posted this question about Six Apart's two hosted blog services:

Anyone know if TypePad or LiveJournal are being blocked? Is Google doing anything about this?

...and then this update from the #joiito irc channel on freenode:

[Catspaw] Joi: Livejournal and Typepad both accessible form the major Iranian ISPs

The role of blogs and other forms of online citizen's media in spreading first-hand accounts of the tsunami disaster and in mobilizing relief aid has been phenomenal. Bloggers deserve to pat themselves handily on the back.

Bloggers rock. OK. Now what?

Can this new model of citizen-journalism and aid coordination be extended to disasters and human tragedies that don’t get so much mainstream media attention?

What can we do for Darfur, other victims of war and famine in Africa, and AIDS victims?

What can we do for the victims of yearly natural disasters - earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, typhoons, doughts, etc. - for whom U.N. agencies have such trouble raising money?

How can we help organizations like Doctors Without Borders bring aid every day to the millions around the world in danger of dying deaths every bit as tragic as the tsunami victims?

Quoting from Boing Boing

Xeni Jardin:
Reader Emily Fish sez:

Newly-elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko is blogging! Unfortunately, I don't know Ukranian (Russian?) so I have no idea what is written here, but none the less, it's pretty impressive that such a political figure is blogging. He's even got an RSS feed!

Link to blog in Ukrainian, and Link to English language version (thanks, D.A. Fonda)

This story's a couple weeks old, but still relevant to PDF's mission to understand how technology can affect political action. A DC-based public affairs consulting outfit, Rock Creek Creative, boldly touted a website they built for the February 2004 "Ukraine in Europe and the World" conference as "the virtual freedom plaza for the democracy movement" during Ukraine's recent Orange Revolution. The day after putting out this ballsy press release, the firm hit the PR wires again, this time with their proverbial tails between their legs, essentially toning down their initial self-glorification.

It's obvious that RCC screwed up royally by exaggerating their role in the country's political about-face. However, is there something to be considered beyond that? I guess my question is, could a website have spurred, or facilitated, the revolution the way RCC claimed its Ukraine in Europe site did? And more important, where is the line drawn between virtual promotion and organization of such a movement and actual physical action? Afterall, no matter how many people may have been rising-up virtually, Putin's puppet would be in power today if it weren't for the droves of frustrated Ukrainians camping out in Kiev and demanding change.

I'm at Esther Dyson's PC Forum for the next two-and-a-half days, and will try to blog intermittently as events allow. Right now we're in the middle of an opening panel bringing together three seemingly disparate speakers:

-Howard Gardner of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, best known for his theory of "multiple intelligences," who made a quiet but impassioned call for the movers and shakers in the room to aim to "do good" now, rather than just focus on making a pile and giving it away later in life.

-Andy Stern of the SEIU, perhaps the most tech-savvy of union leaders (see Purple Ocean and his blog), who made an impassioned call for high-tech leaders and labor to find common ground in two areas: insuring that the path to the middle class in America isn't shut off by the Walmartization of the economy, and by doing something to fix America's declining public schools.

For the past two weeks, world news hounds visiting the International News section of The New York Times website have wondered exactly who’s behind a set of innovative ads featuring real-time updates on the trial of former Yukos CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. It turns out it’s none other than the oil company’s core shareholder, Group Menatep. I got the scoop today from a spokesperson from Group Menatep’s communications firm, APCO Worldwide,