IRC may be primitive, but it gets the job done: A bunch of us are waiting for the third debate to begin, hanging out on in an IRC chat room,

I didn't watch the debate last night. Not sure if I will find the time to watch a tape, either. Instead, I caught Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, John Fogerty and crew at the Meadowlands, a fundraiser for MoveOnPac and ACT.

The fact that Jon Stewart's blistering appearance on CNN's Crossfire has now been seen by hundreds of thousands of people on the Web (via Ifilm.com and bittorrent) has got bloggers, like Jeff Jarvis, talking about the "future of TV."

Dan Gillmor makes a nice counter-intuitive point in his San Jose Mercury News column today.

One out of four American adults have rated a product, service or person using online reputation systems, according to this new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. And that's not counting the under 18-year-olds!

Carmeron Marlow of Overstated.com and Blogdex has created a tool that displays the relative frequency with which phrases are used on the candidates' stump speeches.

E&P online edtor Jesse Oxfeld wrote a sensible analysis this week of a panel discussion called "Blog the Vote" sponsored by the Allentown Morning Call.

Jon Stahl reflects on the victory of "a decentralized network of citizens and media activists [that] took on the 'old media' network of Sinclair Broadcasting" and draws some interesting lessons:

Guess what? Internet users don't insulate themselves in information echo chambers. "Wired Americans are more aware than non-internet users of all kinds of arguments, even those that challenge their preferred candidates and issue positions." That's the news from a new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, done in tandem with the University of Michigan School of Information.

Video Vote Vigil is asking for volunteer videographers to send them video of disturbances outside polling locations on Election Day. Jon Lebkowsky writes that they aren't quite set up to accept content yet, but volunteers who are willing to take their cameras to the polls can sign up now to be notified when registration and uploads are implemented.