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.

Kari Peterson, KAPmedia

According to Time Magazine, we collectively are "People of the Year" for 2006. And why? Because we've begun to reclaim the media. We've created and taken advantage of online tools to stake a claim in the vast, difficult to penetrate media landscape. This is good news for us all! Social networking and citizen journalism have allowed the average person to stake a claim in the media -- to have a voice, to share information, to frame the debate, and rally the troops in more

Ali Levine, NTEN Fellow

I couldn't be more excited about the increasingly participatory nature of the Internet and its benefits for nonprofits. It's not just that these Web 2.0 technologies offer new and powerful tools for nonprofits to engage people in the all important activity of two way conversations (as if that wasn't exciting enough) - it's who can be reached this way.

Almost all nonprofits struggle to engage young people with their missions. Each generation seems to decry the lackluster civic participation of the next and

I just finished reading my colleague Allan Benamer's anti-Web 2.0 post over at his excellent blog, Confessions of a Nonprofit IT Director. He aptly points out that there isn't a technology in the world that can replace a case manager. That, in fact, the basic technologies deisgned to create EFFICIENCIES will do more for a case manager than any Web 2.0 widget ever will.

Allan. I totally agree with you (and also think that Second Life is kind of weird, though I'm trying to overcome that prejudice! But really, paying real money for a virtual house? I don't get it.)

But I digress. Though I agree with

David Lawson, Kintera

"Open APIs are a natural evolution in the nonprofit and software vendor communities. It is critical, however, that security standards be developed within the vendor community to accompany this evolution. Donors trust nonprofits with sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, social security numbers and income levels. Donors and supporters must be assured that sensitive information remains securely held by the nonprofit and that open APIs will not enable data to be available to external parties with less secure

Ben Scott, Free Press

The internet. Not since the printing press has social life been changed so profoundly by an information technology. Few of us understand exactly how it works, but we all know we have to have it. Our homes have to have it. Our schools have to have it. Our businesses have to have it. Every elected official from the dog-catcher to the President is touting the benefits of universal access to high-speed internet service. Never mind that the dot.com bubble burst in 2001, everyone seems to accept with an eerie unanimity (in these