Off the top of my head, there are at least three big conservative “online communities.” RedState.com, HotAir.com, and TownHall.com. I’ll begin with RedState.com, which was bought out by Human Events’ parent company, Eagle Publishing, last fall. The site has diaries, many of which get front-paged, and allows users to recommend posts from the community. This allows content to get bumped up to the “Recommended Blogs” list featured prominently on the upper right of every page. There’s also a “Red Hot” section where editors of the site can post notes about hot topics. I understand the site may be undergoing some upgrades, and a 2.0 version could be rolled out soon. Hopefully we’ll see more than just token new media widgets.

Next, there’s HotAir.com. Some might question whether this is an actual community, or just a news aggregator and blog. I could have picked TheVanguard.org or PowerLineBlog.com’s Forum feature, but HotAir.com really is unique. Founded by Michelle Malkin, the site gets a huge amount of traffic, and basically digs into all of the hot issues of the day – allowing registered users and contributors to “vent”.

More than anything else, HotAir.com is a content driven site – almost every post is link-heavy and contains a video. Malkin and her co-contributors track stories, make news, and even create a lot of original scores, like this recent music video on jihadism. But you have to register for comments, and registration has seemingly been closed for eons. Content can also get lost quickly, as frequent postings tend to move things out of 600 X 800 pixel view. HotAir is excelling at aggregating links – but in a different way than RealClearPolitics or Matt Drudge's site.

Finally, let’s explore the real mother of them all, TownHall.com. This site, previously run by the Heritage Foundation, was bought out by Salem Media in the spring of 2006. Since then, the site’s masthead has grown exponentially. It boasts video, talk radio show podcasts, blogs, and content from leading national opinion writers.

Talkers Bill Bennett, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager, and Michael Gallagher are all on-board – as are several other up and coming conservative personalities who write for the site. My favorite is the “Funnies” section, where conservative editorial cartoons are featured. The site also has book & movie reviews, an issues page, and an “action center”. I’ll return to that last feature in a moment. Other than GOP.com, and several state GOP sites, I’m guessing it’s one of the most frequently visited sites by activists.

So what’s wrong with all of the above sites? Well, maybe nothing. To be sure, each of them has individual strengths and weaknesses. RedState.com has advanced up the activist path in recent months. Erick Erickson and others at the site have been on a weeks long crusade to get Rep. Ken Calvert sacked from a committee assignment. Previously, the site really didn’t mobilize or activate users all that much. Interactivity was limited to comments and diary posting.

Now, on RedState’s front-page, editors are stirring up all kinds of causes, from killing the immigration reform bill to giving Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) the boot. But of all three major sites, in my mind, only TownHall.com comes close to the ideal “activist community”. They do this by offering ways for users to not only interact with each other and content providers (i.e. call talk radio), but also by mobilizing readers.

To briefly conclude, in the world of interest group politics, the online Republican Army is often regarded to be not as angry or active as the Left. Why? I would argue because there isn’t one site, or cause, that unites us all. Sure, we have national bloggers like Instapundit, and PowerLine, among others, reporting on events and news, but we lack a firebrand MoveOn.org of the Right to coordinate it all. It may be the aspiration of groups like TheVanguard.org and RightMarch.com to fulfill this mission, but so far, neither seems to be doing it very effectively.

MoveOn.org boasts 3 million registered users. Recent posts here and elsewhere have speculated about the likely constellation of online activists on the right. But even if we know how many of us there are in cyberspace, the question remains: how do we translate that into action. How do we get the now Democratically-controlled Congress to listen? Even bigger, how do we mobilize and activate our users and digital activists?

Contributors here and elsewhere are addressing that question with increased interest. But to truly make a difference, we have to get better organized and provide activists the tools they need to be effective. One glimpse of hope on the horizon is eConseravative.org (I’d urge all of you to be there for the beginning by signing up for the newsletter today). Others will surely be coming. Or will they? The conventional wisdom is that if Hillary's the nominee--the Rightroots will take the Internets by storm. We'll see about that.