From their e-mail:

“It’s the electoral race of the century. Political maps are being redrawn, and rules are getting rewritten across the board. Fundraising records have been broken. The candidates are even comparing the sizes of their email lists.

The mainstream media is tripping over itself to report on every last press release and campaign announcement. But do any of us REALLY know what’s going on?

With you helping from the frontlines, the Huffington Post can change campaign coverage. OffTheBus is HuffPost’s citizen-powered and -produced election site, and we’re depending on readers like you to tip us to what’s going on or, better yet, to write up the stories you think should be covered.

(…)

Last October OffTheBus members dropped in on Sen. Barack Obama’s Nationwide Canvassing Day from more than two dozen locations. Hours later every observer independently relayed to us that the economy, not the war, was the voting issue. Twenty-four hours later we reported on the significance of the economy, beating the mainstream media to the punch by a few weeks.

As our numbers grow, the same collaborative reporting model that got HuffPost’s OffTheBus the scoop on the economy may tell us a lot more about what’s happening nationwide.”

This sounds exciting. If I was in the states permanently, I would probably join them… not sure how useful I can be with all my travelling all over the place. But if you are interested in the US election and feel you can contribute, check it out. I am very curious to see what happens with OffTheBus, and how the coverage influences mainstream coverage.

By adding the application to your profile you can actively ask your personal network to vote in this US election. If you have lots of friends in the US who are eligible to vote, you might wanna check it out… if you care about US politics that is, and music (Rock the Vote has been aiming at the MTV-generation since its inception, by telling them it is cool to vote).

I will be watching this application – curious to see its uptake.

Activists in countries where free access to the internet is limited use alternative means to get their messages out. Skype, for example, is a popular channel: apparently the Communist Party in China finds it too useful to block, so it gives activists the opportunity to get podcasts out in Skype’s new chatrooms. Other Web 2.0 platforms that are prevalent in Western states are blocked though…

The article furthermore discusses the suspicion that the web, like traditional media, might develop to be “free” in Western societies (I challenge the idea that media are free over here, but I guess compared to China they are), and censored in totalitarian regimes. I have a lot of confidence in Social Media though: these tools are proving so useful, that said dictatorships actually need to use them themselves. And even if certain tools are censored, the savviness of people and technology shouldn’t be underestimated. I sincerely hope that people will keep finding ways to make use of these tools and keep getting their messages out, to make us all facilitate the changes needed.

Read the original article here, let me know what you think.