Despite the fact that the political establishment is heavily stacked against us, the progressive movement in America today is alive and well - largely thanks to one amazing medium that has lowered the barrier to participation in the political process:
The Internet.
As Kossacks, we know all about the "Netroots Revolution".
You're participating in it right now, by logging on to Daily Kos and reading this diary.
Over the last few years, more and more progressives have discovered the power and the benefits of organizing online. More progressives are launching blogs or websites and taking advantage of technology.
While the national blogosphere will certainly continue to grow, the great untapped potential of this medium actually exists on a local level.
In our corner of the country, we've been hard at work over the last sixteen months trying to harness that potential. We've helped unite and strengthen the local blogosphere to a point where it has managed to accomplish some amazing things.
We launched Pacific Northwest Portal back in January 2005 with the hope of taking online organizing to new heights.
If you've never heard of Pacific Northwest Portal, I'll briefly describe for you what it's about. (I won't give a detailed history because I have already diaried our history before and don't feel the need to do so again.)
Pacific Northwest Portal is a website which serves as an information gateway and media center. It is basically like a virtual door to the progressive blogosphere in the Pacific Northwest.
It exists to put a wealth of news, views, and resources at your fingterips.
Some of the site's major functions include:
- Syndicating (or regularly pulling the headlines from) 30 of the region's finest and most regularly updated blogs
- Provides a directory of ALL known progressive blogs throughout the region. In addition to the 30 syndicated blogs, there are over 200 others listed in the Regional Blogs Directory - for a total of 242 progressive blogs
- Provides a directory of major traditional media outlets, with roughly two hundred links to local newspapers and television/radio stations. (This directory was designed to help activists who want to write letters to the editor or find media outlets in their area).
- Provides a directory with links to local Democratic Party organizations (those that have put up websites) throughout the Pacific NW.
- Provides other useful information such as business, labor, weather, & traffic reports, local Air America stations, and advice on helping progressives start their own blogs.
Today, we're pleased to announce the launch of Version 4.0, which will begin a new era in Pacific NW Portal's history. The following is a look at some of the major innovations we've built into Version 4.0, codenamed "Seaside". (The full list of improvements is here).
One of the things we at the Northwest Progressive Institute pride ourselves on is listener feedback. We ask for suggestions on how to improve this gateway for online organizing, and you respond.
Kossack montanaman asked us back in January:
is there something like this for Montana? if not, I'd like to help to start one, for Montana, or for the Pacific Northwest effort. To which you might say " go ahead and start one." To which I would ask, what is the best way to do so?
You asked for it - and you got it!
By popular demand, Pacific Northwest Portal now covers five states - Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, and - Montana! Not only will you be able to find links to progressive Montana blogs in our Regional Blogs Directory, but Montana is now included extensively in our Highlights section.
We also heard from Kossacks who were having trouble getting the Portal to display correctly on their computers:
The site doesn't display well in Safari for Mac. (Branford Boy)
[..]
Is Safari the problem, or is the Pacific Northwest Portal just not interested in serving Mac/Safari users? (bara)
We're excited to announce that we have finally put those annoying compatability problems to rest. Pacific Northwest Portal should now look beautiful on your Macintosh or Linux machine. No longer will you have to put up with overlapping text and disconfigured page elements.
Take a look for yourself - here's two screenshots showing what the Portal looked like before (in Safari) and what it looks like now:
(Image to the left is before, image to the right is now).
We think you'll agree it's a lot better.
Our Regional Blogs Directory, which links to all progressive blogs that we know of within the region, has also received a massive upgrade. Not only have we added 30 new blogs (including a dozen from Montana!) but we've expanded and enhanced the directory.
Now you can mouse over any blog in the directory and a tooltip menu will pop up and display additional information about that blog, including the writer's specific location (city) and a description:
The Regional Blogs Directory was already an amazing resource, but now it's even more powerful. We even use it ourselves - when we were putting together the invitee list for a conference of local progressive bloggers late last year, we used the Regional Blogs Directory to put the database together. (And that's what Pacific Northwest Portal is really all about - organizing online to facilitate offline action).
Another new feature is our new Regional Wire, part of the completely revamped Highlights section.
The Regional Wire is Pacific NW Portal's new highly intelligent aggregation system, tasked with constantly monitoring the hundreds of local progressive blogs in the Regional Blogs Directory for new posts.
The Regional Wire covers all of the five states represented by Pacific NW Portal. The Wire is capable of displaying recent posts either from across the entire region or by state. On the Highlights page, the Wire is broken down by state - Washington, Oregon, and Idaho/Montana/Alaska.
Pacific NW Portal's front page features a "Breaking on the Regional Wire" shortcut that changes to show the one most recent post from across the NW blogosphere. The Washington Outlook and the Oregon Dispatch, (our state pages which provide additional coverage) also feature shortcuts to the Regional Wire which display the three latest posts from within the state.
Also on the Highlights page is the useful "Northwest Bloggers on Daily Kos" diary tracker. This tracker is a unique innovation, allowing visitors to Pacific Northwest Portal to see recent diaries posted by Kossacks living in the Pacific NW. (We think that's pretty cool). The feature is incredibly useful - I just used it last weekend to find LarisaW's diary about the Russ Feingold rally in Seattle.
We've also introduced a podcasts aggregator, which displays recent episodes from NW podcasters.
The last major innovations I want to point out in this diary are our Electoral Buzz feature and special 2006 Elections Digest page. Electoral Buzz is an area in the Highlights section which displays posts from candidate blogs (candidates like Larry Grant and Darcy Burner, for example).
I strongly encourage you to go beyond the front page if you visit Pacific Northwest Portal. Too many of our visitors hit the front page and then close out without bothering to take a look at the content and features of the other pages. There's a navigation bar for a reason. Please explore.
One last new feature - the 2006 Election Digest page allows you to browse recent posts about major races within the Pacific Northwest, including the U.S. Senate race here in Washington and the race for Washington's 8th Congressional District, which the local blogosphere has played a huge role in.
Yesterday, Matt Stoller of MyDD announced that Darcy Burner, the Democrat in the race challenging vulnerable freshman Dave Reichert, is the newest candidate to become "Netroots Endorsed". Stoller wrote (in part):
It's time to take the next step and endorse a candidate who has embraced the netroots from the very beginning. The bloggers in this area have vetted her, and have advocated for her to be added to the page, and there's nothing like local coverage to know whether a campaign is worth supporting.
We in the Pacific Northwest are extremely pleased that Darcy Burner is now a "Netroots Endorsed" candidate. She has earned this honor. From the very beginning of her campaign she has made reaching out to the netroots/grassroots a huge priority, and we thank her for that. We hope other candidates here in the NW will follow in her footsteps.
We have the ability to make a difference in Darcy's race because we are a strong, unified community. Using resources like Pacific Northwest Portal and gathering regularly at events like Drinking Liberally, we have come together to work for short term electoral victories and long term success.
I am convinced that we can beat the right wing if we continue to organize, continue to innovate, and continue to harness the Internet for offline action. That's why we continue to expend serious time and energy into building and maintaining Pacific Northwest Portal.
I invite you to check out Version 4.0 and see the improvements we've made, and offer your feedback.