Before I jump in, let me say thanks to Chris for giving me this great opportunity to chat about my ideas here, and to the MyDD community as a whole for giving me such great feedback on previous posts.  I used to post under the username 'PlantingLiberally', so you may be familiar with my earlier stuff (and you can still find it, I believe, by clicking my username).  My main goal is to spread the practice of liberal entrepreneurship as a strategy for strengthening the progressive movement.  To support that goal, I write about two basic subjects: business ideas which liberal entrepreneurs can snatch up and turn into a profitable enterprise, and mechanisms the progressive movement can develop to support liberal entrepreneurs.  I am an entrepreneur myself, so there is an element of self-interest in all of this.  But I hope that many others can benefit as well.  Thanks, and I hope you enjoy!

The announcement of Facebook Platform last week has been a sea change in the way the social web operates.  While social networking applications used to be a set of web-based tools for communicating within the gated walls of the network's website, they didn't offer much in the way of letting third parties communicate with those users.  Now, the Facebook application platform makes it possible for any third-party vendor to make use of Facebook's tools and large, established user base, in a variety of flexible ways.  I think this platform opens up an opportunity for liberal entrepreneurs to create a stunning new field/GOTV application that radically re-imagines the way we "do" grassroots politics.

Last week, Matt wrote a bit about Disruptive Field Tools, focused mostly on the problem of voter registration and the possibilities offered by Rock the Vote's API.  Today I'm going to extend that idea a bit more, so that we start to have some idea of the potential power that the Facebook platform gives us in registering voters, gathering supporters, and turning them out to the polls.  I haven't had a chance to read through the full developer documentation for Facebook apps, so some of this is speculation.  But my understanding is that most of these ideas should be possible.  We're only waiting on an enterprising progressive developer to take them on, and an enthusiastic progressive community (ahem, that's you) to refine and perfect these ideas.

There's more...