From a comment ( by a fellow named Hank Prohm) on David Weinberger’s article, Loose Democracy on Corante:

I think all of the folks on the Internet have to ask this question:

Are we willing to let the Dean candidacy die because a “hot” candidate from the “hot” medium of the Internet is having trouble translating to the “cool” medium of the networks.

Real good point. Hank goes on to point out that Iowa may not have been a good test of “internet campaigning” (at least this was my gist), and he suggested doing some research on the siginificance of the online community by state.

These questions also cause me to reflect on how the Internet and the online community is being handled (or NOT handled, or MIS-handled) by the Church.

It is certainly a world densley populated by a “luddite” mindset among the leadership. They also still see the medium as a conduit for “cool medium” type content. It is still a largely advertising drivenworld. The idea of bottom-up does not work well in mainline denominations. Where it IS a good match is in the Emergent Church culture; the Postmodern Church movement. Here, the reigns are being taken by the laity (and of course, some clergy who are taking up the cause, like Brian McLaren).