John Sutherland has a good little interview in The Guardian's 'ideas' feature, with Joe Trippi, former Dean campaign manager, and author of the superb book The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

Apparently mociology is a term Trippi uses to refer to things we do with mobile, Internet-enabled devices.

As for blogging, Trippi has some views about why the Democrats have embraced a more interactive web strategy:

There is, Trippi says, no inherent reason for mociology to favour liberal causes - "the technology doesn't know or care what ideology is using it" - but, in practice, it has not yet become a tool for the right. "I think the one problem the right has on the internet and blogging is that they tend to be so disciplined about command and control," he suggests. "That's worked very well for them up to now. But it doesn't, and it won't, work for them on the net. Conservatives tend to use the net as a data communications vehicle. For them, it's a messaging machine. The Democrats - the progressives - are much better at growing big connected communities."

I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced by this. The net appeals to those with a libertarian (small 'l') outlook. You can be a libertarian Democrat, a libertarian Republican, even a libertarian Marxist. The net appeals to all of these people. The Bush team use the Internet in the way they do because they are on the authoritarian side of the libertarian-authoritarian spectrum. Things could be different with a different type of Republican...