My friend Jay Rosen noticed a tweet from me earlier where I said I wasn't going to the conventions this year, and instead planned to "watch the web watch the conventions." He wrote back asking how I planned "to add value to and interact with the convention?" Here's an extended version of what I wrote back to him in response.

The Huffington Post's OffTheBus project hits a milestone; Color of Change, MoveOn and hip hop superstar Nas join forces to push back against Fox News' coverage of race; we have a look at who is a self-proclaimed card-carrying liberal: we've got your beach reading list ready to go; and a great deal more.

Cindy McCain steals recipes from the web!; Jay Rosen has it out with members of the MSM covering Bittergate; Aaron Swartz launches the excellent watchdog.net; a new vid pairs John McCain with George Bush, again; the Obama campaign calls McCain and Clinton on their lobbyist connections; and the Nader campaign enters the 21st century with a pretty good YouTube video. Leave Ralph Nader alone!

Reactions to Obama's speech from the left and right in the blogosphere; videos of Jeremiah Wright open up a kaleidoscopic vastness on the web; Jay Rosen goes after Wolf Blitzer; Schoolhouse Rock on how a bill becomes a law; and the video of Obama's speech reaches almost a million views in less than 24 hours.

Jay Rosen explains why campaign coverage sucks, but does it nicely; Zack Exley gets in-depth about the Clinton campaign's field operation; political journalists are Twittering; allegations of voter suppression from the Clinton campaign in Nevada are gaining traction; expat Democrats can now vote in the primaries online; Micah Sifry schools Brian Lehrer on online political video; Duncan Hunter drops out; and Fred Thompson is still in it for now, though is obits are being written anyway.

Here's my semi-verbatim but not for direct quotation transcript of this morning's fascinating panel on how the web is changing political journalism. The players: Moderator: Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine, Speakers: David Plotz, Slate; Jim Brady, WashingtonPost.com and Jay Rosen, NewAssignment.net.