Welcome to our new group blog on how the presidential campaigns are using the web, and how the web is using them, TechPresident.com. This blog is an extension of Personal Democracy Forum, our online zine and annual conference on how technology is changing politics. Over there, we'll continue to cover all the ways the political arena is being reshaped by new tools and practices born on the web, while over here we're going to drill down on what the presidential campaigns are doing online, and vice-versa, how bottom-up initiatives launched by ordinary people, what we call voter-generated content, are going to impact the campaign.

Compared to four years ago, when an email message from one campaign's then-obscure blogger (Mathew Gross, whose now with John Edwards) to an online community (SmirkingChimp.com) creating an "Ask the Dean Campaign" amazed and delighted grass-roots activists, today you can't have a serious presidential campaign without a robust and interactive website, a team of bloggers and internet organizers, and a well-developed strategy for connecting with your supporters online and involving them offline. (Well, I guess you can have a website that never updates, like presidential candidate Ron Paul, but maybe that will change.)

Times have changed. We're going to cover that change, and maybe help push it forward a bit, too. We've got a great and diverse group of contributors to help us do it, people with experience from the 2004 and 2006 campaigns, as well as experts in everything from mobile activism and social networks to videoblogging and online advertising.

You'll also find some fun bells and whistles here at TechPresident, like our charts tracking how the candidates are doing in the MySpace popularity contest. (Looks like Obama got a real boost out of his weekend announcement tour.) Our Flickr feed of photos generated by citizens out on the campaign trail is personally my favorite feature; I think you get a candid view of the campaign from citizen photojournalism that really widens the lens on how we can see, and participate, in the electoral process.

Like any blog, TechPresident is a work in progress. We're going to keep adding features, and writers, as the race unfolds. And we're going to listen to your comments and suggestions as much as we can (the little Meebo feature on the right-hand rail is there for people to poke us live; we can't promise to be on all the time but we will do our best). So, let's roll up our sleeves and have some fun!