It's been a while since I've checked in on our charts tracking how the campaigns are doing on the web, and even though we're now firmly headed into the August doldrums before the national conventions, some interesting trends are worth noting. In a word: Obama keeps adding friends, but McCain has been gaining traffic. And Bob Barr seems to have some real grass-roots support...

Here are my notes for the talk I'm about to give at Politics Web 2.0 on "The Revolution Will Be Networked: How Open Source Politics is Emerging in America.” (Caveat emptor, your experience may vary.)

Markos Moulitsas covers the campaign for Newsweek -- who will be his counterpoint?; asking political reporters to move beyond the horserace; Meetup plans a super-top-secret project; TinyURL supporters Ron Paul, web addresses stay long; Republicans are behind a new anti-Hillary Facebook group; is Hillary dissing the youth?; and your friends at techPresident are featured on Rocketboom.

Would you like that video question served with a latte? The meet me this Sunday at Rapture Cafe in NYC for a fun afternoon of 10Questions.

Mike Huckabee has started using Meetup. It is an interesting test case for Meetup, and may allow us to learn something about the tool's impact on building community around Presidential campaigns.

You’ve been asking for them, and now you’ve got them: Meetup charts!

This is the Mark Cuban theory applied to online politics. Read on.

I'm not sure how far we should take this analogy, but Ron Paul is to the Republicans of 2008 as Howard Dean was to the Democrats of 2004: the one candidate speaking out prominently against the war when his colleagues were silent or supportive. Since politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum, we shouldn't be surprised that he's starting to take off online.

So Barack Obama is keeping track with Hillary Clinton in the money chase, with "over $25 million raised," compared to $26 million by her. Or, is he actually ahead, with $23.5 milliion raised for the primary, compared to some unknown subtotal for her? We won't know til mid-April, when the campaigns file formally with the FEC. The question is, what matters more: big money or small money fundraising? And does "online fundraising" mean anything special any more?

Clinton gets a B+; Kucinich gets an F. A ranking of the candidates' websites' by how quickly they tell us where we can find public meetings offline.