I just finished spending the last two days at the Personal Democracy Forum's annual conference in New York, "Rebooting the System." In addition to learning from technocrats and politicos buzzing with great ideas and insights, I had the opportunity to moderate a panel entitled, "Mastering the World of Online Video." It featured three YouTube greats - Robert Greenwald of bravenewfilms, Josh Marshall of TPMtv, and Matthew Sheffield of NewsBusted. Each had some great thoughts to relay on how to succeed in the world of online video.

Barack Obama announces his decision to opt out of public financing in a video sent straight to supporters; McCain launches his first Facebook app: a video tour through the "Straight Talk Express" bus; a new Google maps gallery mashes up political data and geography; Capitol Words offers a daily extraction of Congress's most popular word; and more.

We know YouTube is big in campaigns and capable of changing outcomes. But what about in the policy space? Congress wrestles with the YouTube logo while in the UK the PM partners. Ultimately, video of a blocked latrine makes things change.

Blogging from the most important Internet gathering in the country.

NPR launches a new hub for voters to post their political stories; does Obama's fundraising model remove the need for public financing?; why do government tax sites work better than government participation sites?; Obama's online tactics further illustrate the generational gap between him and Clinton; a video of Obama talking about the effect of social media on his campaign; Members of Congress may finally get to use YouTube; and an federal agency wants to pass the archiving of gov't sites to a nonprofit. Come on, disk space is cheap!

Big Think aims for highbrow web intellectualism and networked conversation -- is it working?

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Joe Trippi a week ago, as we both were in DC for the launch of Larry Lessig's new Change-Congress project. (Joe is working with Larry on CC, and the Sunlight Foundation, which I consult for, was co-sponsoring Larry's speech). If you watch closely, you can see Larry in the background of the first video, in fact. In general, the lack of production values suggests I should stick to my day job, I know. But we covered a lot of interesting ground, as you'll see...

Obama makes YouTube history with the most watched presidential campaign video ever -- and beats cable news along the way.

Hugh Atkin is viderate. You and I are not (that is, unless you know how to use Final Cut Pro and have amassed an in-depth videobank of clips and allusions that you can manipulate as easily as typing this sentence). We've linked to his stuff before, but I'm writing this mash note because I think he deserves more attention here in the U.S. (his Australian countrymen already know how brilliant he can be).

Twitter claims its first victim; Obama dominates YouTube; small donors play a big part in the presidential, not so much in smaller races; Obama Girl does *not* win a YouTube video award; despite sharing dip and nachos with Bubba, Bill Richardson endorses Obama.