I can't stop thinking about it. I've read it twice now and it is staring at me printed out on my desk calling for a third read -- just a quick glance to catch the good parts. It's not exactly ground-breaking - just commonsense and truth laid out nicely.

I'm talking about Clive Thompson's article in this past Sunday's NYTimes Magazine, "Brave New World of Digital Intimacy."

Indeed, I truly hope every single Republican politician reads this article to help better understand the modern world. They need to understand the value of the technology before they can learn how to use it effectively.

Of the Facebook News Feed which Mark Zuckerberg bravely deployed:

In essence, Facebook users didn’t think they wanted constant, up-to-the-minute updates on what other people are doing. Yet when they experienced this sort of omnipresent knowledge, they found it intriguing and addictive. Why?

Social scientists have a name for this sort of incessant online contact. They call it “ambient awareness.” It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does — body language, sighs, stray comments — out of the corner of your eye. Facebook is no longer alone in offering this sort of interaction online. In the last year, there has been a boom in tools for “microblogging”: posting frequent tiny updates on what you’re doing. The phenomenon is quite different from what we normally think of as blogging, because a blog post is usually a written piece, sometimes quite long: a statement of opinion, a story, an analysis. But these new updates are something different. They’re far shorter, far more frequent and less carefully considered. One of the most popular new tools is Twitter, a Web site and messaging service that allows its two-million-plus users to broadcast to their friends haiku-length updates — limited to 140 characters, as brief as a mobile-phone text message — on what they’re doing. There are other services for reporting where you’re traveling (Dopplr) or for quickly tossing online a stream of the pictures, videos or Web sites you’re looking at (Tumblr). And there are even tools that give your location. When the new iPhone, with built-in tracking, was introduced in July, one million people began using Loopt, a piece of software that automatically tells all your friends exactly where you are.

On Twitter enhancing self-awareness:

It is easy to become unsettled by privacy-eroding aspects of awareness tools. But there is another — quite different — result of all this incessant updating: a culture of people who know much more about themselves. Many of the avid Twitterers, Flickrers and Facebook users I interviewed described an unexpected side-effect of constant self-disclosure. The act of stopping several times a day to observe what you’re feeling or thinking can become, after weeks and weeks, a sort of philosophical act. It’s like the Greek dictum to “know thyself,” or the therapeutic concept of mindfulness. (Indeed, the question that floats eternally at the top of Twitter’s Web site — “What are you doing?” — can come to seem existentially freighted. What are you doing?) Having an audience can make the self-reflection even more acute, since, as my interviewees noted, they’re trying to describe their activities in a way that is not only accurate but also interesting to others: the status update as a literary form.

In the spirit of Aldous Huxley, it may indeed be a Brave New World, but I'm loving every minute of it. (Follow me @DavidAll.)

The New York Times editorial board has posted a blog entry noting their participation in the upcoming debate, 10Questions.com, which TechRepublican proudly supports.

The nuts of their post:

The Times Editorial Board is collaborating with TechPresident on this project; we will help them get word out about it and also help to deliver the final questions to the candidates. MSNBC is also participating, and a host of blogs from across the political spectrum are cosponsors. We decided to get involved with 10 Questions because we have high hopes that it will help us learn something new about the current roster of presidential hopefuls and enliven a political process that is in desperate need of enlivening.

As of this posting, there are 57 video questions on subjects like national security strategy, transparency in government, whether or not to ban cartoon images of Native Americans. They have been uploaded by citizens of states like California, Nevada, Florida, New York, and Texas who have shot their videos from their living rooms, backyards and the beach. One questioner features his cat within the frame along side his talking head (at least the cat is cute).

Although we may be amused, intrigued, and even moved by these videos, their value is not up to us to decide. It is up to you. The video below is currently in first place. There are 22 days left to vote it up or down, explore the others and even tape and upload your own question.

The top 10 questions will be delivered to the candidates on Nov. 17, and they will have until the end of the year to post their answers. Learn more at 10Questions.com.

Make sure you head over to 10Questions.com and submit a question. After all, if Republicans are going to be asked to answer these questions, it's only appropriate that Republicans participate in the entire process.

And yes, I will be submitting a question.

Julie Bosman asks over at the Caucus if 2008 will be the "Year of the Gimmick."

Candidates hoping to reel in Web-savvy voters have been holding a host of online raffles, contests and stunts this year — from Mitt Romney’s “Make your own ad” contest (won by a 23-year-old college student from Provo, Utah, and broadcast the first week of October) to Hillary Clinton’s campaign theme song vote (the winner, Celine Dion’s “You & I,” was promoted in that much-talked-about Sopranos spoof video on the Web).

John Edwards made a highly publicized campaign stop in Columbus, Ky., (population 229) on Oct. 4 after its residents tallied the most votes in a “Win a Visit from John Edwards” contest on Eventful.com.

In short, the answer is/was/and always will be yes. Campaigns are about getting people to do something that they would otherwise not do. And it's not just the web-savvy crowd that campaigns are hoping to lure over to their message for a minute or two. It's supporters of all shapes and sizes and even the elusive positive press hit.

Campaigns give out all sorts of chum on the campaign trail: t-shirts, fleeces, cuff links, stickers, etc. They do it because it works. They do it because supporters like getting a free t-shirt for sacrificing four hours on a Saturday to go door-to-door. I'm one of those people too.

But the web "gimmicks" are different. Web gimmicks act as the shiny spinner which flickers sunlight as the lure moves through the water quickly. Its purpose is to capture your eye and imagination. Once you bite, they've nailed one.

And often on the 2008 campaign trail we're finding out that it's those candidates who fish with the prettiest lures that seem to catch the best press stories.

Gimmick or not, a fish is a fish.

What do I have in common with NBC's Tom Brokaw?

Well, it turns out not much but we are both contributors to an op-ed running in the New York Times today called "Changing the Terms of Debate," which asks seven media and technologist-types: What would a real new-media debate look like?

Here's my piece:

August 17, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor

The People's Court
By DAVID ALL

SOME have argued that the "community" should be choosing which questions to ask the candidates, while others have said that the "community" should have a chance to weigh in after the debate. Both are novel, but I'm interested in how we get the "community" to participate during the debate.

The audience should be given a share of the stage with the debate moderator. The millions of voters watching the debate could interrupt, in real time, from the comfort of their homes to help hold the candidates accountable for their answers.

If people thought Hillary Clinton did not answer a question thoroughly, they could text on their cell phones, call the toll-free number on the screen, or vote online to register their dissatisfaction.

And if a majority of the viewers thought she dodged a question or otherwise failed to answer, she would be asked to try again.

— DAVID ALL, president of a Republican consulting firm that helps candidates develop new-media strategies.

So what are your ideas for a real new media debate?

The New York Times has a great piece on Fred Thompson's quasi-campaign effort and how the FEC is struggling to deal (or not deal) with it:

Mr. Thompson, a Republican, has been able to set up what looks like a stealth campaign on the Internet because federal election laws and enforcement have failed to catch up with the surge in campaigning in cyberspace. As a result, he has been able to promote his positions and raise money through his Web site, all while technically remaining a noncandidate.
* * * * *
F.E.C. regulations that limit the use of traditional media for campaignlike activity apply to the Web as well. But while regulators can easily monitor the reach and level of spending on television and other traditional forms of advertising, the same is not the case with the Internet, since users determine how much traffic a site like Mr. Thompson’s gets. And experts say enforcement is practically nonexistent.

“The federal government is a lumbering beast amid all these insects,” said Michael Cornfield, a professor of political management at George Washington University who specializes in online campaigning. He said Mr. Thompson was running a “phantom campaign” on the Web.

“That’s what the Internet makes possible that wasn’t possible 20 years ago,” Professor Cornfield said. “Because people can campaign on your behalf, you can have what looks to the letter of the law like uncoordinated campaigns but you’re still building yourself a network.”