Flickr Photo: savolskertsonNo matter which side of the political aisle you sit on, there's no doubt that social media is having a big impact on this presidential race. We even dedicated a whole newsletter issue to the topic.

My favorite stories are the ones that don't actually involve the campaigns. I love hearing about ordinary citizens starting up FaceBook groups or MySpace pages for their candidates, making democracy their own.

The latest example to come to my attention? Super.del.egates.us for Obama. No endorsement of candidates here, just sheer admiration for Jo and Michelle for taking the reigns of democracy into their own hands and empowering others by using a wiki.

It gives me hope on days when Hillary, Barack, and John all film spots for a WWE episode instead of debating.

When the Framers met in Philadelphia in 1787, they bravely conjured a new form of self-government. But they couldn’t have imagined a mass society with instantaneous, many-to-many communications or many of the other innovations of modernity. So, replacing that quill pen with a mouse, imagine that you have to power to redesign American democracy for the Internet Age. What would you do?

This is the challenge posed by Personal Democracy Forum for its new book project, Rebooting America: Democracy in the 21st Century. It is an anthology of essays from leading thinkers and activists -- check out the impressive list here -- that they will publish to coincide with this year's Personal Democracy Forum conference, June 23-24 in New York City. Folks from the NTEN community are featured in this list, including Alan Rosenblatt, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Craig Newmark, craigslist.org, Nancy Tate, League of Women Voters, Ellen Miller, Executive Director, Sunlight Foundation, and Robert Sherman, Surdna Foundation.

The best part is that they are inviting their readers to submit essays answering how to make America better, stronger, more inclusive, and participatory, and to vote on their favorite essays. Up to three winning essays will be included in the anthology.

Brian Reich, EchoDitto

We are only part way through the 2008 election cycle and there have already been dozens, perhaps hundreds of articles written, TV hours spent, and blog comments posted about the role that the internet and technology are playing in this election cycle. The general consensus among the pundits seems to be that this is the year that technology, particularly social media, has had a significant impact on the outcome of the presidential election contest.

Unfortunately, that consensus is wrong and those pundits don’t know what they are talking about.

Flickr Photo: johnmukA couple of weeks ago, my 2-year-old was kind enough to let me listen to NPR on our way downtown, and I heard a funny little snippet about Spain's most popular ringtone:

...a royal voice saying “Why don't you shut up?” — the recent outburst of Spain's King Juan Carlos to President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela at a summit in Santiago, Chile.

I meant to blog it but forgot. (I think my mind was trying to erase the subsequent event of that car ride, namely listening to "A Spoonful of Sugar" 13 time in a row.)

Imagine my delight when Katrin Verclas, esteemed former NTEN ED, tweeted a link to an Economist piece stemming from an event she ran in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It's a great summary of some of the cutting edge mobile work that's going on around the world, from election monitoring in Nigeria to getting around censorship in Pakistan -- and it references the King Juan Carlos ringtone.

Are mobile phones really the next big thing? It certainly looks that way. An article in the Baltimore Sun points out that the US market is really busy right now making sure that the next generation of mobile phones will be much more than phones:

Word on the street is that the coolest thing to hit democracy since the women's vote is 10 Questions. (Sidebar: The best part of "Mary Poppins" is that suffrage-loving mother. She steals every scene she's in. Forget Julie Andrews. If you haven't seen it lately, it's definitely worth renting!)

If you remember the CNN YouTube debates, then you get the idea behind 10 Questions. Anyone and everyone can record a question. The trick here is, now the viewing public can vote for OR against your questions. The top 10 questions will be given to the candidates, who will respond with videos of their own. It's a great site with a great premise, and a very nice interface. As long as you're here, why not check out the top rated question, presented by the amazing -- and longtime NTEN member -- Ruby Sinreich:

So, what are you going to ask your community about?