But this development is more properly seen as a natural evolution in any open, networked system that is allowed to operate in the political space. The credit belongs to his supporters, not Obama.

It's now a truism that when presented with an open platform, users will hack it to serve their purposes, not necessarily those of the sponsor. Many times, those two sets of priorities are intertwined (e.g. supporters desire to get involved matched with a campaign's need for volunteers), though in this case, they weren't.

A new article in Yale's Journal of Law & Technology offers up a somewhat counterintuitive new online plan for the next presidential administration to make government more useful, more accountable, and more transparent -- in short, give up.

Detailing what he thought was a bug at BarackObama.com, Michael Arrington found it odd that the site listed the "Gay Nigger Association of America for Barack Obama" as a supporter. Some quick digging turned up an error alright. The system automatically displayed the latest group created, whether it was actually supportive or not.

The bug ended up being the openness of the system.