Maybe you went to a Tea Party yesterday.  If not, you surely saw news coverage of the crowds that turned out in hundreds of locations around the country.  If you have any political aspirations, this should be a wake-up call to the power of the Internet.
 
The Tea Parties were organized and promoted online, through websites like Newt Gingrich's American Solutions, over 500(!) Facebook pages, thousands of Twitter messages and more.  Without the community building and organizing power of the Internet, it's unlikely that a grassroots movement of this magnitude could have come together.  But, this is just the beginning.  The momentum can be continued and further built using the variety of online tools available.
 
Coincidentally, the Pew Internet and American Life Projectreleased their study of the Role of the Internet in Campaign 2008, yesterday, as well.  Some 74% of internet users--representing 55% of the entire adult population--went online in 2008 to get involved in the political process or to get news and information about the election. This marks the first time that a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey has found that more than half of the voting-age population used the internet to get involved in the political process during an election year.