• James "I videoblogged Ron Paul from my college dorm" Kotecki showers praise on NJ gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie's online campaign.
• While GOP online ad maven Eric Frenchman explains why NJ independent gubernatorial candidate Chris Daggett is AWOL online.

Apologies for the light post this morning, but I'm at the Politics Online conference in downtown DC's cavernous Ronald Reagan building where a decent wireless hookup is harder to find than natural lighting. I've decamped to a nearby Starbucks. Even if the coffee always has that burnt flavor, at least they've got reliable wifi.

Anyway, this morning I moderated a panel on mobile activism called "Power in Your Pocket" with Mobile Commons' Jed Alpert, Credo's Adam Klaus, the Student PIRGs' Sajatha Jahagirdar, and the Obama campaign's Scott Goodstein. This is a collection of folks who know intimately the ins and outs of using cell phones to create political and social change. My panelists made a handful of points about how mobile is, in some ways, a very different medium than the web/Internet that most of us are more familiar with. I scribbled down notes on a few nuggets that I thought might be of particular interest:

• Open Standards. There's a good chance that you're aware of the fact that the wireless neutrality principles that are much discussed concerning the Internet don't apply to the mobile space. But there is a fascinating discussion starting up about the mobile industry developing a set of open standards that would at least make it easier to program for phones. As things stand, mobile developers have to build unique applications for just about every phone they what their apps to work on.
• Spam. As something of a counterpoint to that first bullet, one of the positive things about the fact that AT&T or Verizon controls the network we use for mobile, that tight reign means they can kill spam before it gets to us. Goodstein told of getting off of a plane in Latin America and being bombarded with cell phone spam.
• Fundraising. Mobile fundraising has been stymied in recent years by the fact that service providers traditionally take a considerable chunk (the figure 50% was heard) of whatever is contributed. Alpert talked about the Mobile Giving Foundation, a promising program that brings that fee down to a few cents for non-profit organizations.
• List Integrity. Once organizations go through the trouble of building mobile lists, list integrity tends to stay pretty high. Email addresses may come and go, but people tend to hang on to their mobile number, especially now with number portability.

(Photo credit: NCinDC)

We're pleased to announce that Twitter Vote Report has won a Golden Dot Award from the Institute for Politics, Democracy, & the Internet at George Washington University. Vote Report bested all the competition in the "Best Animation or Mash-up" category, despite involving very little actual animation.

Seriously, though, a huge congratulations is due to those many people who poured a whole lot of hours in the weeks just before election day building Vote Report. From tech to press to volunteer coordination, a remarkable team coalesced almost immediately to cobble together what we can now proudly call an award-winning tool. Even from close up, it was an impressive feat. So, a big hooray to all involved.

The awards will be presented at next week's Politics Online conference in DC. A few of us from the techPres/PdF will be there. And so will such tech-politics notables as Senator Claire McCaskill and Rep. John Culberson. If we can snag a photo of them actually tweeting in the wild, we'll totally post it.

The parade of Gov 2.0 conferences continues, with this weekend's eDemocracyCamp, timed to take place just before the start of IPDI's Politics Online conference. eDC is actually in its second year, and it will run from 8am to 5pm on Sunday at George Washington University's (go Colonials!) Media and Public Affairs Building. That's the same space the recent Transparency Camp took place. Importantly, happy hour will take place at the end of the day at McFadden's. As a bar camp, attendance is free. You can register and check out who else is scheduled to attend here.

"Slumdog Millionaire," Kate Winslet, and...Twitter Vote Report? Yes, it just might be. The completely volunteer-driven election '08 vote reporting project that began as a mere seed of an idea on this humble blog has been nominated for a Golden Dot Award from the Institute of Politics, Democracy, & the Internet. We're competing in the "Best Animation or Mashup" category against JibJab's "Time for Some Campaignin'" video. Quite a broad category, but, hey, a nom's a nom. Didja know the dudes at JibJab regularly kick puppies and only recycle when people are looking? We're just saying. Voting is open to all, so make your preference (Vote Report) known (Vote Report).

For those of you attending (or thinking of attending) the upcoming Politics Online Conference, consider attending a panel I have assembled: Social Networking/Media Strategy of the Presidential Campaigns. While it may be too soon to say that this aspect of online campaigns is the "be all, end all" of online strategy, there have been some great innovations in this space this campaign cycle.

Hearty congratulations are in order for Julie Barko Germany, who has just been officially named the new director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet (IPDI) at George Washington University. Julie has been deputy director of IPDI since 2003 and acting director since its longtime leader Carol Darr stepped down last summer.

The Web on the Candidates -- Politics Online Edition

Jeff Jarvis posts a roundup of one of the first sessions at the Politics Online conference, on putting together a web team. The panel, moderated by former Hotline editor Chuck Todd, featured Giuliani advisor Patrick Ruffini, former Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi, myDD's Jerome Armstrong, and Townhall's Chuck DeFeo. Trippi, as usual, was full of useful anecdotes from his Dean days. Jarvis reports one: "[Trippi] recalls a moment in Iowa — a story I’ve heard before — when a student told Dean that he was skipping a final to see the candidate but the candidate switched to dad mode and insisted that the kid go take his test. It made great and authentic video, Trippi says, and he marks it as a significant moment in the campaign online." No current has reached that level authenticity, Trippi says. Check out a video of the panel on Ruffini's site.