The Web on the Candidates

MySpace and Mark Burnett (producer of TV shows like Rock Star: INXS) are working together on a new reality show that will search for an independent presidential candidate. "Contestants in the show, set to launch in early 2008, will meet the public and interact with supporters, protesters and others. An interactive 'town hall' will give MySpace users and TV viewers a chance to rate their performance." The show is still looking to partner with a network, though something -- I don't know, intuition maybe -- tells me that Rupert Murdoch-owned MySpace will ultimately find a partnership with Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox...

A bipartisan alliance has signed a petition asking the Republican and Democratic National Committees "To Ensure All Presidential Debate Video Can Be Legally Put On Sites Like YouTube." The petition was started by Stanford professor and copyright activist Lawrence Lessig, and it seeks to make certain that all debate footage (which would be officially owned by the networks on which the debates appear) be put into the public domain or licensed as "Creative Commons," Lessig's alternative copyright vision. It was signed by the who's who of tech/politics, including techPresident's own Micah Sifry. See the post for the complete list.

Barack Obama makes waves with a far-reaching tech policy: will other candidates follow suit?; anti-Giuliani and anti-Paul videos gain some traction; and a new game from John McCain is fun, or controversial, or both. We can't decide.

Emailing Democratic superdelegates; divining why Silicon Valley voting for Clinton; youth registration and voting keeps rising; rating the best political data visualizations; Obama and Clinton keep raising huge amounts online, with Obama pulling away; meanwhile GOP efforts look flat; Obama vs U2?; Hillary's plugging her url a lot more; and viral political video here and in Australia

Obama beats Clinton in Wisconsin and Hawaii, maybe with the help of a text campaign; a tech consultant analyzes Clinton and Obama's policy proposals and finds that Obama actually has more substance; more videos appear showing candidates borrowing catchphrases, applause lines, and hair styles; Obama's numbers take off again on YouTube; McCain sees life on Facebook; and the web's response to a possible Lessig run for Congress.

YouTube re-imagines YouChoose '08; Will.i.am remixes his "Yes We Can" video with mixed results; Joe Trippi speaks the truth, tells it like it is; a skeptic about a Lessig run for Congress and the first interview with Lessig since his announcement; the Obama Spendometer is widgetized; and a New York Times article about John McCain may end up helping more than hurting his campaign

I'm at Harvard today and tomorrow attending the Berkman Center's 10th anniversary, and boy is this is an idea-rich environment. If you want to peek in on the proceedings, there are lots of ways to join in:

You can watch Steve Garfield's live video streams on Qik.com, you can log into the IRC back-channel at irc.freenode.net/berkman, and there's a lot of blogging, twittering and flickring happening, all grouped around the tag "Berkmanat10".

With just 19 days to go (gulp) til Personal Democracy Forum 2008 opens its doors, we're pleased to announce that Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, and the author of the important new book, The Future of the Internet: And How to Stop It, will be keynoting day two of the conference. Plus we have a great line-up of presenters for the Idea Market. More details after the jump...

The Congressional Management Foundation reports that citizen engagement with Congress is up dramatically while Rick Shenkman argues that American voters are dumber than door posts. Coincidence?

I'm here at PdF '08 at a press conference marking the launch of InternetforEveryone.com, a coalition pushing for universal high-speed Internet, centered around four core tenets: access, choice, openness, and innovation. The unveiling of the broadband effort was a unique opportunity to witness some pretty, ehem, prolific talkers from the worlds of academia, advocacy, and business strictly held to just one or two minutes, and so I've tried to capture their mico-arguments in favor of universal broadband here.

Mark Pesce, who closed out the second morning of plenary talks at PdF2008, has posted the text of his talk on "Hyperpolitics (American Sytle)." Dig in!