Note to John McCain: Technology Matters, Circle ID.

This is what I draw from the announcement that former FCC Chairman Michael Powell is drafting a technology plan for McCain, to be released shortly. The McCain campaign will promote it as an overdue response to the comprehensive technology agenda that Obama unveiled eight months ago. I'm sure they will position long-standing Republican ideas like cutting the capital gains tax and promoting "market forces" to encourage broadband deployment as maverick proposals. What concerns me most is what the McCain plan apparently leaves out: strong views on the crucial issues that Obama's plan covers. Immigration reform and free trade are worthy goals. They aren't a technology agenda.

I like Michael Powell. I really do. He's extremely smart and open-minded, he was a dedicated public servant, and he did some wonderful things at the FCC, especially on spectrum policy. Yet Powell always had a curious blind spot about how FCC decisions affected the world outside the agency. His infamous quip comparing the Digital Divide to the "Mercedes divide" is a good example. Even when he had the policies right (as on requiring "line sharing" for broadband access), he couldn't always get them adopted, because the FCC doesn't operate in a sealed box. It's a component—an important component—of the larger policy and political apparatus of the federal government. With the McCain plan, Powell is making the same mistake.

The Friendfeedization Of Facebook, TechCrunch.

Many of the changes seem designed to put the year-old application platform on the backburner more than anything. Facebook has had to fight an ongoing privacy, spam and competitive battle with its more aggressive third party developers, using algorithmic and policy tools.

But it’s also clear that they like what they see at Friendfeed, which expertly combined the idea of an activity stream that was first popularized by Facebook with the microblogging trend introduced by Twitter. Users constantly add content that their friends read and comment on, which creates yet new content. The virtuous page-view creating cycle continues.

Facebook still silos most of this information, although they are more than happy to have users bring in third party data to the Facebook feed. This week facebook will also launch their Facebook Connect product, which is designed to let users get that data back out of Facebook.

Reflections on Right Online, BlueyBlog.

• Michelle Malkin gave a great speech Saturday that focused on the right’s strengths rather than our shortcomings. I won’t repeat the laundry list of accomplishments she cited (hopefully I can get the video), but it was refreshing to hear someone talk optimistically and not be afraid to criticize the left’s tactics. She chided the MSM for reinforcing the “right is behind online” narrative. It’s too bad most MSM reporters were across town fawning over Al Gore and the nutroots. Go figure.

• The conference was the perfect place to plug the new RedState.com, and Erick Erickson made the most of it. With a heavy emphasis on state and local blogging, RedState is making a big push to get more people active in politics in their own backyard. On a personal note, it was the first time I saw Erick speak publicly before a large audience. It quickly became clear he should be doing more of it. He’s funny, intelligent and communicates in a way that people understand.