I'm at the Politics Web 2.0 conference at the University of London, Royal Hollaway, and things have just kicked off. As always with my visits to conferences, I will try to blog that which I find interesting (I'm no Ethan Zuckerman) and all my renderings are not verbatim, but rough paraphrasing. Here are my notes on one of the first keynotes, which definitely held my attention. Helen Margetts, of the Oxford Internet Institute, is presenting on "Digital-era Governance: Peer production, Co-creation and the Future of Government." This is one area where the possible impact of the internet has been underestimated, especially within the community, she starts off. These technologies could have a huge meaning for government.

More reporting from the front lines of academic research on politics and the internet: Now I'm sitting in on a panel with presentations on the connections between the Dean campaign and the New Left (no, he didn't slum with the Weathermen); John Kerry's innovative (!) use of the web post-2004; and Italian firebrand and antipolitician extraordinaire, Beppe Grillo.

Here are my notes on a very interesting talk by Rachel Gibson of the University of Manchester, titled "Trickle-up Politics? The Impact of Web 2.0 technologies on citizen participation." I think you'll find her overview and characterizations of politics before and during the web to be very helpful.

Here are my notes for the talk I'm about to give at Politics Web 2.0 on "The Revolution Will Be Networked: How Open Source Politics is Emerging in America.” (Caveat emptor, your experience may vary.)

Hear what Beth Noveck White House Office Science and Technology wants to know about how the government can create useful feedback loops with crowdsourcing. Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, a graduate student at Columbia University who studies the use of new technology in politics, offers his response. At PdF 2009 in New York we asked "If you could ask the PdF audience one question, what would you ask?" We would like to hear your answers to the insightful questions that were asked at our 2009 conference. Please post your comments below.
Interested in hearing more from Beth Noveck? Hear what she said to PdF 2009 in her keynote titled Innovation in Government, Obama-Style: Participation and Collaboration.