I hate to risk alienating my new BFF Mark Zuckerberg, but has Facebook's moment in the sun as a hot political tool passed? And if so, what does that tell us about the future of social networking sites for online political organizing, and even about the future of Facebook itself?

(This story was originally published on AlterNet and is crossposted with the permission of the excellent folks over there. -- Nancy)

As an organizing tool, Facebook has had a couple of ugly weeks of late. Students at Michigan State University recently used Facebook to revive Cedar Fest, an old campus tradition that had been outlawed by local officials in the late 1980s after it frequently escalated from a party into something more akin to a riot. This time around, after violence ensued, East Lansing police officials vowed to hold those Facebook users accountable. News headlines ran along the lines of "Facebook: Tool for Chaos?" and the social-networking site was demonized as a means for the rabble to wreak havoc. But it's only right to hold up the recent commotion in south-central Michigan against other Facebook-fueled collective action. Facebook is revolutionizing the way collective political and social actions are organized today, blowing the doors off old models of how volunteer lists are amassed, funds raised, and messages honed and delivered.

The HuffPost breaks more news, this time about Hillary's closed-door comments; two strategists weigh in on why there's no conservative MoveOn; the perils of Obama's social networking strategy; a million strong Facebookers are united against Hillary; now you too can become Hillary, Barack, or John; and Time tackles the roots of liberal dominance of the web.

I was shocked to discover that Mark Penn's book Microtrends has its own Facebook application.

Clay Shirky talks to Salon about online organizing, Obama Girl, and more; polls show Obama Girl is getting tiresome; the Hillary Clinton Deathwatch is keeping a close eye on Hillary's chances; Jeff Jarvis asks who should be the nation's CTO; now all of the candidates have produced versions of Hillary's "3am" ad; The John McCain Facebook Challenge encourages Republicans to befriend the McCainiac; and McCain's campaign hires a new web guru.

When it comes to social media, I'm a digital native. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter - these services are deeply integrated into my daily life and, to a certain extent, the lives of my friends and family. The fact that I am a native makes me well-suited to explain the technology and its uses and benefit; the cost, of course, is losing the non-native perspective.

I'm going to piggyback off Michael Whitney's news of Facebook's decision to swap political identities for party labels, and say: what a strange and misguided choice.

Yesterday Facebook changed the way it lets users identify their political views, replacing a simple spectrum of views with a cluttered list of international political parties. Organizing people into political parties allows Facebook to sell microtargeted ads to advertisers looking to reach, say, Democrats in Ohio. Unfortunately, the change in emphasizing in party over position will organize a small base of users who self-identify as members of the national parties, and scatter the rest into free-form identification.

A new Hillary Clinton Facebook app may be too late; a MySpace poll shows increased support for Obama; a mysterious Edwards URL redirects to Barack Obama's site; what are those superdelegates doing all day?; barely a nod to the web during last night's Democratic debate; Hillary's campaign finally embraces a piece of voter-generated content.

Obama beats Clinton in Wisconsin and Hawaii, maybe with the help of a text campaign; a tech consultant analyzes Clinton and Obama's policy proposals and finds that Obama actually has more substance; more videos appear showing candidates borrowing catchphrases, applause lines, and hair styles; Obama's numbers take off again on YouTube; McCain sees life on Facebook; and the web's response to a possible Lessig run for Congress.