TechPresident Debuts to Cover Technical Aspect of 2008 Presidential Race

Posted on February 12, 2007

A new blog called TechPresident is covering how presidential candidates are using technology and the Internet. The blog is a new group blog from the Personal Democracy Forum. The blog will also cover how content generated by voters is affecting the campaign.

The 2008 election will be the first where the Internet will play a central role, not only in terms of how the campaigns use technology, but also in how voter-generated content affects its course. TechPresident.com plans to track all these changes in real-time, covering everything from campaign websites, online advertising and email lists to the postings on YouTube and who's got the fastest growing group of friends on Facebook.

Our team of bloggers is made of veterans of the 2004 and 2006 elections, ranging across the political spectrum. Their expertise covers everything from website design to the latest in mobile tools and social networking sites. And we'll look closely not just at what the campaigns are or are not doing, but what voters and activists are doing online to independently affect the election.

The New York Times has an article about the new blog which says Personal Democracy Forum and Tech President are owned by Internet entrepreneur, Andrew Raseij.

Unlike most politics sites, techpresident.com will be the online equivalent of a trade magazine, aimed at political professionals who need to keep up with the Internet and technology executives involved in creating the tools they use. A group blog with a dozen contributors, it is an extension of Personal Democracy Forum, an online publishing and conference business owned by an Internet entrepreneur, Andrew Raseij.

Although Mr. Raseij has been a donor and adviser to Democratic candidates - he served as chairman of the technology advisory group of the Howard Dean campaign - he has recruited former campaign workers from both parties as bloggers. "When techies talk about technology, they tend to forget their politics," Mr. Raseij said.

It should be a very popular blog. We have already seen a lot of candidates using blogs, videos and social networks and we are still very early in 2008 campaign. Senator John Edwards opened with a pre-announcement on YouTube. Senator Hillary Clinton framed her campaign as a conversation. Senator Barack Obama has a social network on his campaign website.

As TechPresident points out videos can also be used to attack candidates like they are on a blog called The Real McCain. The blog also provides an interesting chart that shows which candidate has the most MySpace friends.