P-blogs revisited once again

Back in 2004, and later in 2005 I wrote why politicians should be blogging.

Indeed, the number of people - and politicians - blogging has been increasing. A month after I blogged about it a second time, Wikipedia got an entry on "political blog" - and not by me (although it would be too much expect that I've coined that term, I am proud to have foreseen that).

Blogs are becoming a force that can 'make or break' people. Consider Dean US presidential campaign, or various politicians that have resigned after blogosphere shined light onto some of their more shady activities. I am sure there are and will be more politicians podcasting and videocasting, too. But the most important thing on the Web 2.0 is the 'human to human' interaction - or in that case, 'human to politician' (pun partially intended).

On Web 2.0 people consider themselves more equal and deserving a reply. A politician that will reply to his blog comments, that will show he is ready to discuss issues with his constituents 24/7, will surely be more popular than his more traditional counterpart (let's not forget the generational change, too - this simply will be expected and normal for the future generations).

Consider, now, how this can impact political decision making. The representatives will be brought closer to the electorate; some may even start polling the readers of their blog on what they should do.

Perhaps we will even see a form of direct democracy with representatives reduced to little more than voicing the demands of their blog readers.

Likely it will not happen exactly like this. But one way or another, Web 2.0 will change quite a few things. And our politics will surely be no exception.