Web tools behind the 2008 campaigns: Tony Steidler-Dennison

Why do you get Barack Obama campaign calls from live people, but dialer robots from the Clinton and McCain campaigns? That Obama volunteer is using a web application that lets him or her take on a short assignment from anywhere there's a computer and a phone. The Howard Dean and Wesley Clark campaigns took some pioneering steps in Web-based volunteer networking back in 2004. Today, the Barack Obama campaign is refining the open source and Web 2.0 approach. Tony Steidler-Dennison, a podcaster and veteran of the Clark campaign, looks at the technology behind this year's politics.