Sitting in the “Blogging for Political Activism” session right now – kicked off as a doctoral thesis project by the speaker, M. Kathleen Milberry

The Progressive Economics Forum – Chief Economist / Blogger, Andrew Jackson. Marc Lee. So far just talking simple technology of setting up blogs – DreamHost, picking a theme, getting a domain name. Nothing specific about motivating activism yet.

Extent of “ripple effect” is limited to Technorati, and promotion to”Progressive Bloggers“.

700-1000 page views per day avg.

Intersections with Mainstream media – “A number of times when I’ve made a post, have led to mainstream media contacting for an interview. It just happened, not promoted. No mediaroom section on the blog.”

If you want media coverage of your blog, put that all in the mediaroom. Make it easier to capture.

Watch the Comments on the posts (via RSS, etc.), sometimes the first comment can derail the whole thread.

The DMCA is being used to shutdown dissenting voices in the US. Hosting companies will generally shut down the blog first, ask questions later.

TAKEAWAY: Use a Canadian web host to avoid the DMCA, or try:

• koumbit.org
• http://theorem.ca/

What about using Reddit/Digg for collecting Canadian political content? Try using the Canadian Reddit section.