Earlier this week, I bolted up to NYC for my third annual Personal Democracy Forum.

This year's conference was bigger and badder then ever with over 1,000 of my closest tech & politics nerds in attendance. Indeed, the crowd size started to show, with some panels filling to capacity and ushers turning people away.

DAG certainly contributed to the growth. The last two years, it was only David and I at PDF. This year six daggers attended.

As always, there were a number of excellent panels and thought-leaders (and some not so great ones too) - but for those who couldn't make it up or were too busy twittering to pay attention, I've recapped it for you.

Without any further blather, here are the top five things I learned from this year's PDF.

1. The Pickens Plan By The Numbers

Since it launched over a year ago, I've been paying close attention to the widely successful Ning-powered social action network Push.PickensPlan.com and at PDF I got to hear some of the amazing stats behind the network. Including:

• 1.1 million emails sent to administration officials.
• 40 percent of supporters have taken at least one action on the site.
• 201,000 active members of Push, the ning network.
• 91% of Congressional Districts have an active "District Leader".

Wow. More info on here.

2. Technology Can Fix Health Care

The current debate over health care reform can seem pretty bi-polar: a government takeover or privately run health care. But lost in the debate is the idea that a smarter embrace of technology can reduce costs, improve quality of care, and increase efficiency.

For example, moving to electronic medical records is a reform effort that Republicans and Democrats can agree on. Right now, gaining access to your medical records is difficult to impossible. But if you stream-line access to your personal health records, you're empowered to better control your own health care. That's the philosophy behind the site HealthDataRights.org, check it out.

3. Whatever.

Michael Wesch, the anthropology professor from Kansas, who's viral video "Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us" you've probably already seen (If not, do so. Now.) - did it again. He described a short history of the term "whatever". From 60s counter-culture to the present and used the term to frame a analysis of the Youtube community. More info here.

4. Class Politics Online: Myspace vs. Facebook

Danah Boyd delivered a much buzzed about lecture on the divide between MySpace and Facebook users and made the case for the white flight of suburban, college-bound youth from MySpace to the "safer" Facebook.

As someone who uses social networks for pretty much everything, the talk was an eye-opener. And it's making me reconsider how I can leverage MySpace (which I've tended to write off) to reach certain demographics for advocacy and activism. Read her lecture online here.

5. IT Dashboard

White House CIO Vivek Kundra announced an IT Dashboard to track government spending on technology across 28 federal agencies. Government 2.0, here we come. It offers data feeds to pull out the info and a clean, accessible user-interface. More on the project here.

I want to give special props to at @bivings for not only hosting a blowout happy hour but also deploying some solid tech for PDF, including a simple Twitter aggregator for #pdf09 hashtags. The clever logo makes the page (note the # and @ symbols in the cup). 

Yesterday, Kate Kaye - Senior Editor at ClickZ stopped by DAG to talk to us about her new book, Campaign '08: A Turning Point For Digital Media.

Kate was in town for the #POLC09 conference, to moderate my panel on Social Media Analytics.

Here's a brief video of Kate explaining how McCain and Obama's campaign leveraged online advertising:

A few highlights:

While the conventional wisdom has the McCain campaign getting blown away by Obama online - that's not entirely the case when it comes to paid media.

For example, McCain had some really smart people running his paid media - particular his Google Adwords - and saw excellent results.

However, McCain's advertising was not integrated with the larger campaign message while Obama's was - the team did not have a "seat at the adult table" as Kate aptly puts it. Further the scale of Obama's online ad buys, dwarfed McCain's.

Hungry for more info? Good, then go out and get the book right now.

Whenever the Pew Internet and American Life Project releases a study, I drop what I'm doing and pay attention, because I know it's going to be good.

Their most recent report, The Internet's Role in Campaign 2008 is no exception. Here are the highlights:

* Some 74% of internet users--representing 55% of the entire adult population--went online in 2008 to get involved in the political process or to get news and information about the election.

* 45% of internet users watched online video.

* One in three internet users forwarded political content to others.

* Fully 83% of those age 18-24 have a social networking profile, and two-thirds of young profile owners took part in some form of political activity on these sites in 2008.

Wow. Let's let those number sink in for a minute.

Ok, now pick your jaw up off the floor and let's move past the executive summary.

Newspapers and Radio Lose - the Internet Wins
26% of adult Americans get most of their news online, almost equal to the 28% who read dead-tree papers. But TV still dominates the media landscape with over 70% of adults tuning in.

The biggest loser for share of audience to the Internet over the past 12 years has been newspapers and radio to a less extent.

More McCain than Obama Supporters Online
Here's something you don't hear everyday:

Supporters of Republican presidential candidate John McCain were more likely than backers of Barack Obama to be internet users (83% vs. 76%).

This is attributed to Republican voters being better educated and wealthier. I guess there goes the conventional wisdom that Republicans don't use the Internet.

Older Americans Sharing Content
I often hear how older voters, don't use the Internet. While it's true, only 22% of Americans 65 and older are online - of that segment currently online a surprising 40% watch online video and a whooping 47% share/forward political news. That's the highest of any other age group.

Engaging the Conversation
One in five Internet users post political news online, primarily on social networks and this activity is dominated by young people. In the 18-29 year old demographic, 49% engage in politics on socnets and 40% post content.

Two Quick Lessons to Learn
1) If you want to reach young people, get your content on social network sites. Period.

2) If you want to reach older users - compelling emails and videos that make them want to share your content, is the strategy to follow.

This morning at CPAC, I got my online fundraising on.

my friend and colleague Sendhil Panchadsaram spoke on a panel with Mindy Finn and Kevin Lucido moderated by Erik Telford.

For a 9AM event, there was a good sized crowd that had good questions to ask for the Q&A portion.

Some highlights from the panel's remarks include:

Mindy

Obama was focused on building a movement as opposed to chasing down the high dollar donors.

When doing online activism, at the local level, focus on issues that have national relevance. There’s no limit to your message's reach on the Internet.

Sendhil

What does Trickle Up Activism mean?

1) It's a way to get more passive activists involved at the local level.
2) Get activists comfortable with using the Internet to organize, donate & volunteer.

It’s not that there’s not enough activists out there – it’s that they're not being harnessed effectively.

Kevin

Pay attention to where your display advertising is running and the content that's associated with where it's displayed.

Example - the McCain campaign ran display advertising on NRO but at the same time that all the ads were running on the site - there was extremely negative story about Senator McCain, which on NRO was surrounded by three display ads for the McCain campaign.

The takeaway: if someone was playing closer attention the ad buy - this would have been avoided.

If you want to follow the CPAC conversation, be sure to head over to CPAC09.com to catch the live UStream feed of CPAC and track all the tweets with the #CPAC09 hashtag.

Yesterday, I headed over to the Conservative Bloggers Briefing at Heritage for the first time in well... way too long.

It was a good one though. Senator Jim DeMint was the headliner - there to discuss the stimulus bill and Fox News was there with two cameras to get his comments.

I've seen Sen. DeMint speak several times, and he knows how to deliver a solid conservative message. He didn't disappoint yesterday. A few of his quips include:

On the stimulus bill:

This is not change you can believe in. This is business as usual.

On being rushed by the White House to vote on the bailouts and the stimulus bill:

When someone says, you need to make a decision "right now”. My answer is automatically "no".

DeMint's call to action was clear - look at the stimulus bill and help us pick it apart. You can check out the House version of the bill at www.ReadTheStimulus.org.

Appealing to Conservatives on Privacy Issues
The other speakers that I found particularly interesting were from a new think tank called The Future of Privacy Forum.

Jules Polonetsky, co-chair of the forum, talked about where privacy was heading in the digital age and how he thought the Federal government could better protect consumer privacy online.

Polonetsky, who appeared very well-caffeinated with a brook-no-fools demeanor, has spent his career working for leading web firms (AOL and DoubleClick) advising on privacy practices. He also advised the Giuliani and later Obama campaigns on their internet/tech agendas. Clearly, he knows what he's talking about.

I asked him what steps he thought the government should take to better regulate consumer privacy online. He referenced a recent post on their website that lays out a "Consumer Privacy Agenda for the New Administration".

Some highlights include:

1. Appoint a Chief Privacy Officer to Promote Fair Information Practices in the Public and Private Sectors.

2. Ensure that Interactive Tools used by Government Provide Users with Enhanced Transparency and Controls.

7. Encourage Accountable Business Models.

He also touched on the dust-up over the new www.WhiteHouse.gov site placing cookies on site visitors' computers. His take:

Calm down. Take a pill, relax. Then launch a process to decide how to have web 2.0 sites in the government, but maintain users' privacy.

Good advice in my opinion.

I think the hard question for conservatives is whether to support additional government regulation (Oh no, big government!) or trust private companies to self-regulate (big brother, anybody?).

My inclination in this case is to support limited, sensible steps aimed at insuring personal privacy online. But the flip-side to this view, is that liberals could use these "sensible" steps as a trojan horse to ram through much more onerous government regulations.

But what do you think? Leave a comment and let me know you thoughts.

Yesterday, I made it across town to hear from Rep. Jeff Flake at the conservative bloggers briefing at Heritage.

Rep. Flake came by to talk up a new site he's launched: PorkParade.com (disclosure: PorkParade.com is proud product of DAG, that I worked on.)

The site's goal is to put pork on parade and help build a movement to push back on Washington's wasteful spending. Cool tech features on PorkParade.com include:

* Email capture.
* Twitter - any tweets with the hashtag #pork are displayed in real-time and top twitters are also listed.
* YouTube videos.
* del.icio.us bookmarks, anyone can "tag" links with "porkparade" and those items will show up on the site's feed.

When Rep. Flake goes down to the floor of Congress he'll tweet about the earmarks he's going after and using #pork the tweet will show up on PorkParade.com. But the site isn't just about Jeff Flake, anyone can share examples of wasteful earmarks, help spread the message, and follow the discussion.

In addition to PorkParade.com, Rep. Flake shared his views on the possible bailout of Wall Street.

He noted his extreme skepticism to the whole plan and opposition to Wall Street executives walking away from failed firms with a golden parachute.

Rep. Flake noted that despite Treasury Secretary Paulson's pleas to the contrary, this bailout should come with costs for firms that take government funding.

According to Paulson, we can't make this bailout a punitive measure, but Rep. Flake asked the sensible question - why should we have to bribe companies to participate in this bailout? If we have to, then apparently this proposed bailout isn't all that necessary.

I have to nod my head agreement to that - failure comes with a cost, and Wall Street firms should not be able to escape their bad investment decisions without facing certain costs. Bottom line.

I'm heading over to the Xcel Center right now for the last night of the GOP Convention here in Minneapolis - St. Paul. After Sarah Palin's home-run last night - the expectations are high for John McCain to equally deliver. I'm confident he will.

If you're not watching the Convention on TV scope out the action live on UStream and follow the back channel chatter on Twitter at RNC08.com.

Lastly, check out David's interview of Erick Erickson of Redstate on how bloggers are being treated at the Convention.

It's day 2 of the GOP Convention in MSP and right now I'm backstage at the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis waiting for Ron Paul's Rally for the Republic to get started.

The lack of posting yesterday was due to the fact, that well, there was nothing to cover as almost all convention activity was suspended. But as I predicted, Hurricane Gustav wasn't the mother of all storms that some feared it would be, and we've now returned to our regularly scheduled program here in MSP.

Because Paul wasn't invited to speak at the GOP Convention - he's throwing his own gig - and according to reports the venue's been sold out.

David and I walked in just as Paul was wrapping up a press conference - but Matthew Yglesias has the round up here.

I'm blogging this from the press filing center - a collection of folding tables backstage - and we're seeing a pretty heavy media presence for the rally - lots of tv cameras and reporters. I think it's because the GOP Convention doesn't kick off until 6 or 7 tonight and everyone's looking for something to cover this afternoon. Smart planning by the Paul campaign to hold this now - the only problem is that Dr. Paul doesn't take the stage until 7PM - a time when most media (including myself) will have already moved down the street to the Xcel Center.

As always check out RNCO8.com for up-to-the-minute Twitter coverage.

Updated: 1:44PM Check out David's interview with Ron Paul's communications director Jesse Benton:

More videos of the rally on the TechRepublican YouTube channel here.

Will the GOP Convention actually happen? That's the question that's on my mind as I watch the cable news from my hotel room in Eagan, Minnesota just a "tad" outside of Minneapolis - St. Paul (or MSP as I now call it).

We know the that the political portion of tomorrow's program has been canceled and that President Bush and VP Cheney won't be coming to MSP on Monday. The rest of the week's schedule is up in the air and we'll find out about Tuesday's schedule by noon on Monday.

Personally, I'm predicting that the convention will be be back to normal come Tuesday - it looks like Gustav will miss New Orleans and the storm won't be nearly as strong as Katrina was three years ago.

Aside from Gustav, one of the big stories surrounding the convention is just how tech-savvy the event plans to be - and the media has been picking up on the story - for more check out the articles below, David and I are quoted in each respectively.

Convention's cacophony of voices will include blogs, vlogs, tweets and phlogs, MinnPost.com.

Bloggers Plan To Blanket GOP Convention, National Journal.

As happens during any convention or conference - people's twittering kicks into overdrive. As others have noted, I think Twitter is at its best for these large events, lots of people in the same venue each sharing their own unique perspective on the proceedings.

And the best way to follow the Twitter conversation for the GOP convention is by scooting over to RNC08.com where you can follow a live feed of tweets with the hashtag #RNC08 as well as Flickr pics tagged with RNC08. Follow along and join in - #RNC08.

Special thanks to Jordan for stepping in on Friday and blogging the news to the people while I was out sick. It's good to have a team behind you.

Obama's failed text-message ploy, The Guardian.

Indeed, less than two weeks ago, Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe assured supporters that they would be the first to know who Obama chose for his VP – via text. I worked for John Kerry in 2004, and we announced the John Edwards VP pick to our supporters via email, then the grassroots technology du jour. We were scooped by the press, but not by much. The emails were cycling through the queue on a Tuesday in July. It felt like a victory for the millions of grassroots, online supporters, although I don't think it was ever recognised as such.

On the blog TechPresident, Republican strategist David All summed up the Obama text effort in one word: "Disappointing."

Yes, the mainstream media scooped the netroots again this time around.

New C-SPAN Sites Get Way Unboring With YouTube, Twitter, Qik, Flash…, TechCrunch.

But today C-SPAN gets fairly cool with the launch of two new sites dedicated to the upcoming Democratic Convention in Denver and Republican Convention in Minneapolis. C-Span is still workingout some technical issues, but TechCrunch readers can get an early preview by clicking on these links for DNC08 and RNC08. Both are similarly formatted sites that incorporate citizen journalism via blogs, Twitter, YouTube and Qik into portals to cover convention and related news. They will complement the existing C-SPAN Politics site.

The sites also incorporate normal C-SPAN video content. But unlike the unwieldy content on the main C-SPAN site the new sites will show video in Flash format and allow embedding on other sites. Third party blog content from sites like Huffington Post, Instapundit, Gateway Pundit, RedState, etc. will be incorporated into the site and Twitter messages marked with hash marks #RNC08 or #DNC08 will also appear on the site (with moderation). C-SPAN employees will be given Qik cameras to record the action when not on main camera.

McCain up 5 points, increasing youth support, CR Voice.

Also interesting is that the poll shows that Obama’s lead among young voters age 18-29 slipped 12 points from July. His lead among our age demographic is now only 12 points, 52-40. This is the second major poll that has shown Obama losing his grip on this group of voters.

Where Politics Reigns, So Do Political Blogs, NY Times.

Then, there is CWA-NJ Conservatives with Attitude! (www.gopusanj.com). The counterpoint to Blue New Jersey, CWA bills itself as the home for “home-grown, rock-ribbed, All-American patriots.” The site offers new posts on most days, with supportive fans largely echoing the authors’ sentiments.