NPI New Tools Spotlight: Engage the Blogs and the Netroots

The blogs were one of the first new internet-based tools that really impacted politics way back in 2003. If anything, their power and influence have only increased year by year since then. More than ever, progressives need to be engaging the blogs and the larger community of the netroots.

Jerome Armstrong, known as “the Blog-Father” for founding one of the earliest political blogs at MyDD.com, wrote the first new tools memo for the New Politics Institute when we launched our New Tools Campaign in 2006. This year he has updated his “Engage the Blogs” memo to broaden his call to “Engage the Netroots.”

His updated memo introduces key data-points about the blogosphere and makes the case about why progressives need to engage bloggers, as well as how to engage them. Among other points, he shows how local blogs are becoming increasingly useful and influential. He also shows how the blogs are harnessing newer Web 2.0 developments such as video, and how social networks can be used to harness the full power of the netroots.

Armstrong gives some big-picture strategic advice on how progressives should evolve to take full advantage of the netroots' potential. Yet he ends with six very concrete, practical things that any progressive campaign or organization can do.

Watch Jerome give a 10-minute talk version of his memo at a kick-off event this summer in Washington DC. He was joined by other experts from other new tool fields who you also can watch off the NPI website.

For those who feel they deeply understand the blogs and netroots, dig into your address book and find some people who could benefit from a memo like this. Send this viral message along. Thanks.

Peter Leyden