The article: "A common tactic of cult groups to ensure total reliance on them is to cut off all communication to the outside world except for the channels they provide. The danger of Web 2.0 technologies is that we do this to ourselves."

A quibble: it may be a danger, but OLO demonstrates the popularity of places on the web that do the reverse. Apparently there are plenty of us that enjoy seeing a broad range of opinions, some polar opposites of our own.

Not that one could really say OLO was a 2.0 site in the technical sense, but it is strong social networking site. I think is an excellent demonstration of how wrong the current "Web 2.0 enabled social networking on the internet" meme is. But that is another argument, and probably not one of any import to your typical OLO inhabitant.

I have to agree with the authors' comments about GetUp!.

When they started they covered a broad range of issues.

Over a relatively short period of time the Organisations' true political motivation appeared.

As quickly as I had joined them, I left them .

One line actually caused me to laugh aloud, much to the consternation of my fellow-mourners.

>>One of the advantages of Twitter is that it allows individuals to gain an instant understanding of what is happening in our democratic institutions... a number of members, including Joe Hockey, tweeted proceedings to the outside world.<<

In the immortal words of the Bard - "yeah, right".

How many people would consider a tweet from Joe Hockey to constitute "an instant understanding"?

Of anything?

Even a die-hard, rusted-on, dyed-in-the-wool Howardista would not take anything in this limited-to-140-characters form with less than a bucketful of salt.

Herein lies the self-deception, or perhaps, given the number of "I pioneered this" claims, wilful self-promotion.

Tweeting - equally "blogging, MySpace, Twitter, bebo, Facebook, flickr and YouTube" - is no more a means to "become engaged in the democratic process" than is writing a letter to the Editor.

It is a simulacrum of engagement. It is a substitute for proper, ordered communication of facts and ideas. It is not even a very efficient communication vehicle, given the sheer amount of "noise" on any one of these channels.

But I guess if you are a politician, it is important that you believe all the hype, just in case you are branded as being out of touch with the Zeitgeist.

Sadly, it is the technological equivalent of uncle Wally's attempts to dance at the wedding reception; the decent reaction is to pretend not to notice, while hoping that he stops before he upsets the bride.

The Obama Campaign is often used as a justification for devoting significant resources to internet based campaigning. The situation in the US is different to Australia, compulsory voting in Oz being just one of the many differences.

Yes it is interesting to see "neutral" websites show true colours, but this is not surprising since research shows that leaderless groups often fall prey to whichever narcissistic personality takes over. If one goes to sites that are polar opposite in opinion and then contributes, one often finds themselves subject to attack. Real debate cannot be achieved under these terms. The internet allows all those things in society that are abhorrent to thrive (i.e. exclusivity, racism to name but two) but also helps to foster some free speech (what a conundrum??)

By the way, use of twitter by twits only shows how desperate they are for attention NOT that they have anything decent to say.

GetUp! certainly is a progressive organisation but it has a broad membership from the centre-left. Their members campaigned in many electorates in 2007. To hear the views of one in the ACT please see 'The Poll That Counts: Around the Booths' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFBIAT6kYiE. At last count there are more than 20 campaigns on their website.

For an egalitarian blog that attracts a range of viewpoints, try 'The Blogocrats' at http://www.blogocrats.com/

As well as OLO itself, 'Oz Politics: feeds' http://www.ozpolitics.info/?page_id=140 offers a range of blogs to broaden our prejudices.

Of course we tend to stick together and of course we form "congregations" of like minded people. The point about Web 2.0 is that the opinions of others are accessible if we choose to access them. In the past it has been difficult to access other opinions. Now it is getting easier and that is positive.

The next stage of the web is to make other opinions more accessible through the semantic web.

It all looks positive to me.