Last night, when perusing the interwebs to select good tech reads for this morning's Second Cup, I discovered all the good snippets hail from our friends at TechPresident.

Now that the site is up and running, you can read their take on the assent of conservative online activism.

How Much to Spend Online, and Other Tips

In a wide-ranging conference call with Micah Sifry and members of the PdF Network, Engage partners Patrick Ruffini and Mindy Finn filled in a lot of the gaps in knowledge about Bob McDonnell's successful, online-powered campaign to become governor of Virginia, as well as about the ascendancy of the netroots on the American right.

I was listening in, Tweeting as the call progressed and furiously taking notes. Here are some highlights, but you can listen for yourself when the call is added to our archives...

Danny Glover's New Gig: Editor of Capitol Hill Tweet Watch Report

The word came via email on Monday that Danny Glover, a veteran editor with National Journal and other publications, had taken over the editor's role at Capitol Hill Tweet Watch Report. The Tweet Watch Report was itself launched by techPres contributor David All's David All Group early last month, a daily email tracking what members of Congress, members of the press, and other relevant people are saying and doing on Twitter.

Springtime for Republican Political Technology?

Bob McDonnell's Virginia gubernatorial campaign was just one example of a maturing Republican political technology industry.

En route to McDonnell's victory, the new governor made heavy use of technology, from web tools built by Patrick Ruffini and Mindy Finn's company, Engage — which they'll talk about with Micah Sifry and PdF Network members in less than an hour on the latest PdF Network conference call — to the Tusk Mobile platform for mobile engagement. We covered that, too. Republican-only vendors also worked on the other big governor's race last year, the successful campaign to elect New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. In a phone interview earlier this week, Ruffini also told me that he tested a fundraising widget in Jim Tedisco's unsuccessful special election campaign to become the next congressman from New York's 20th Congressional District.

Social Media Measurement: Assets Are Not Returns

Most smart people working in and around the social media space realise the truth in the follow quote but it never hurts to remind ourselves to measure business results as opposed to soft metrics such as the ones listed below. We should be doubly careful to ensure what we think is measurement is actually measurement and not counting.

Mashable Mind Map: What is the Future of Blogging

A little over five years ago, sites like Typepad (TypePad), Blogger (blogger) and WordPress (WordPress) dazzled by empowering anyone to instantaneously share his or her thoughts with the world; My how times change. Today, however, in a world where thousands of status updates and tweets whiz by our screens every hour, blogging arguably feels slow.

So is blogging dead? It depends on who you ask. After all, TMZ and Mashable (Mashable) are blogs and they’re doing quite well. However, it’s definitely time for a closer examination of the blog – where it sits today and where it’s going. 

10 Stunning (& Useful) Stats About Twitter

Last month a social media analytics provider named Sysomos released a comprehensive report on Twitter usage. The problem with most analysis on Twitter, though, is that it is limited by the minimal amount of data that Twitter collects. So, to fill the gaps, most reports do things like guessing gender based on real names or pulling data from keywords in people's biographic information. This often yields some questionable results - and the Sysomos report is not immune to this (for example, they find that 65% of Twitter users are under the age of 25, but base this on only the 0.7% of users who actually disclose their age).

Looking past these small points, the report does share some fairly interesting observations and stats as well if you dig a bit deeper. Here's my read on the 10 standout conclusions that the report offers to help you (and your brand) better understand the potential uses of Twitter:

Online Activism Isn't Dead

The social and political impact of the Internet is growing at a rapid pace.  After all of the successes credited to President Obama’s social media campaign network in last fall’s election, we still find ourselves at the earliest stages of development of the social layer of the Net.  Still, some are quick to dismiss the activist power of the Internet and still are not convinced that this medium will continue to change the way the world organizes around issues.

Take a piece in today’s Washington Post by Monica Hesse, which commented on the “trendiness” of online activism and discounted these “click to join” groups as nothing more than numbers on a Facebook page.  This completely misses the impact that social networks have had on increasing the awareness of many issues and building communities around these issues.

Via TechPresident

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.