In response to Deborah's post on her "widget" for polling: We are entering an interesting era in the domain of social networking. A report, today, Jan 12, on National Public Radio around community activism and the Obama administration pointed out that they, too are organizing along these lines. What is more interesting is that they have the demographics of the individuals on their lists which lets them selectively activate persons by age, issue, location, etc and immediately not only poll them but move them as a segment into political response. This is what the mailing list kings of earlier years could do to get citizens involved. In other words, the ability to extract maximum attention and pressure. We are in "interesting times" and the press in an era of the "New Media" is facing an increasing dilema as to its roll in society whether commercial or public broadcast. Is there really a "Fourth Estate" as we have seen in the past or has social media, including blogs and the plethora of networking sites changing the scene and it is not just a matter of adopting new tools but of changing the business model. The same thing is happening in almost all information gathering/dissemenating organizations, including education at all levels, preK->gray as well as the idea of academic research and publishing. thoughts? tom tom abeles _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live™ Hotmail®: Chat. Store. Share. Do more with mail. http://windowslive.com/howitworks?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t1_hm_justgotbetter_howi...