Yesterday, in the city by the bay, Netroots Nation hosted an information and idea-packed New Media Summit in part to gather Bay Area locals and also to convene progressive activists in preparation for the Netroots Nation conference coming in August.

The half day program, followed by a party, began with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, ended with candidate for CA Attorney General, Kamala Harris, and contained some fascinating panels on different aspects of new media in politics and activism. As always, Markos Moulitsas (Daily Kos) drew interest from the full house, as did Clara Jeffery (Mother Jones), Karl Frisch (Media Matters), Cheryl Contee (Jack & Jill Politics), Gina Cooper (Netroots Nation founder), and speakers from Digg, Facebook and Ning.

The Prince of Darkness explains away his propagation of the story that John McCain was picking a running mate this week by saying that all he did was post the story on the Internet; barackobama@gmail.com is not the direct connection to the Democratic candidate's inbox that we may have thought it was; a new video feature puts congressional competitors head-to-heard, answering the same questions; and loads more.

A straw poll of attendees at last week's Netroots Nation conference finds that respondents have different priorities for themselves and their president; Ed Cone interviews the Next Right's Jon Henke will DC's new-media-media young conservatives are profiled in the hometown press; Twitter stats reveal which recent conferences generated the most chatter; and much, much more.

In today's Daily Digest, we rather exhaustively recap Netroots Nation and RightOnline, the blogger conferences held this past week and weekend in Austin, Texas.

Both the online left and the online right gather in Austin, though the size and profile of Netroots Nation demonstrates the distance that conservatives still have to travel on the Internet; a congressman takes up a new post as Flip-equipped correspondent for the effort to move elections to a more sensible day; a candidate's web comic helps to sextuple the existing fundraising record in his race; and much, much more.

I'm in Austin, Texas for the Netroots Nation conference today and tomorrow, and will try to do some live video interviews as I bump into people and post them here. I'm speaking tomorrow on a panel on "Transparency, Participation and Reinvention in Government in the Next Administration Through Web 2.0 Tools and Culture," which I think could have had the shorter title of "Rebooting Government in 2009" but you get the drift.

Bill Richardson and -- sooprise, sooprise -- Ron Paul come out on top of Slate's vice-presidential picker; the Obama campaign is, in the words of one Dean veteran, not innovative but "extraordinarily professional;" we get a look into how professionally-made video fits into the Obama campaign; and much, much more.

YearlyKos becomes Netroots Nation; a new widget gets out the women vote; a state-by-state study of voters' web habits reveals unsurprising results: IA and NH are the most tuned-in states; and Hillary Clinton launches a new rapid-response site, shows a renewed effort to control the flow of online information.