In the aftermath of the Iowa caucuses, and the victories (yes, yes in the battle, not the war) by Barack Obama and Pastor Huckabee, I thought it might be time to look at the impact of the web and the flurry of 2.0-esque activity on these outcomes. But then I found this post at The Drama 2.0 Show, and figured that I could do no better.

He/she/it (who the heck is behind Drama 2.0) notes:

“In my opinion, Web 2.0 has become little more than the technological equivalent of the candidate-holds-a-baby photo opportunity. It looks great that politicians are answering questions from Internet users, making themselves appear more accessible and encouraging grassroots campaigns, but it’s really little more than marketing fodder.”

As a relative cynic in this field, I love it. Go read it.

Web 2.0, and thus Government/Politics 2.0, are not façade for information dispersal. Their true adoption necessitates a new form of public sector engagement, where not only do the mediums change, but the machine and political process behind them change as well. And if we define Web 2.0 as the “participative web,” then government engagement, and thus political engagement, means going beyond the shift of offline services online (1.0), but rather the transformation of those very processes to enable governments to better reflect and represent citizen values and priorities. Thus having a Facebook group doesn’t cut. Letting that Facebook group help shape your priorities and focus, in a transparent manner, however, would. But getting to the real 2.0 might just take some time.