The first videos of plenary sessions from "Personal Democracy Forum 2008: Rebooting the System" are now available on our Blip.tv channel at pdf.blip.tv. Now playing: Elizabeth (and John) Edwards, Lawrence Lessig, Jonathan Zittrain and Mark Pesce

A group on MyBarackObama.com urging the senator to vote against surveillance bill that includes retroactive telecom immunity breaks into the top five groups on the campaign's own social-networking site; Obama supporters are changing their middle names to "Hussein" -- at least on Facebook and in their email handles; C-SPAN posts video from selected sessions of PdF '08; and much, much more.

As Barack Obama's support for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that includes telecom immunity causes, in the words of one blogger, "a shift in the zeitgeist online," can his online fundraising hold up?; John McCain unveils The Lexington Project, a focused push on energy independence; we round-up some additional coverage of PdF '08; and much, much more.

Here's the clip of Andrew Rasiej interviewing Elizabeth Edwards at home via Skype video Monday at PdF2008, when John Edwards happens to drop in. They discuss the impact of the Internet on politics 2008. Edwards says it's the only reason Barack Obama isn't taking public financing," noting that it's given him a huge fundraising advantage "over Bush"--a slip quickly corrected by Elizabeth, who you can hear chortling in the background. Andrew tells John that the "internet community really loves your wife," to which he responds, "I know, so do I!" And then Elizabeth comes back on to say goodbye, noting, "PdF is enormously important in building this community--thinking about how we can use it [the net] is enormously important."

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.

We've got one more round-up of the extensive coverage of Personal Democracy Forum '08 and we ask the question: was this the most mediated conference in all of recorded history? Also: where is the online right's defense of John McCain in the face of the "John McCain is aware of the Internet" meme?

Yesterday, things got a bit heated on the plenary session with the presidential campaign internet staffers. Mark Soohoo, the deputy internet director of the John McCain, was defending his boss for not personally understanding how to use a computer. Tracy Russo, Soohoo's counterpart on the John Edwards campaign (where she was deputy director of online communication), took issue with Soohoo, and then the fireworks started. Video after the jump...

Personal Democracy Forum 2008 has kicked off with a bang. In today's digest we've got pointers to conference coverage all over the world live web.

Here's the archive of live feed from Robert Scoble's Nokia N95 that he is using during the PdF2008 panel on "Making and Building the World Live Web."

I'll be going live to the web from time-to-time during the next two-and-a-half days as PdF2008 gets under way, using a Nokia N95 mobile phone, and if you want to watch, just bookmark this page. You can also follow me on Twitter (my handle is @mlsif), and every time I'm actually streaming live, Qik--the fabulous live video streaming service we're using--will send a tweet letting you know.