MyDD
 |
|
|
Type of site
|
Progressive/Liberal blog |
|---|---|
| Created by | Jerome Armstrong |
| Website | www |
MyDD was the first large collaborative politically progressive American politics blog. It was established by Jerome Armstrong in 2001. Its name was originally short for "My Due Diligence." In 2005, MyDD was profiled in Campaigns and Elections magazine, crediting the site with being "the first major liberal blog." In January 2006, the name was changed to "My Direct Democracy" as part of a site redesign, with the new tagline "Direct Democracy for People-Powered Politics."
The first Dean grassroots web site was created at MyDD in April 2002. In early 2003, Joe Trippi learned of Meetup through Armstrong and MyDD. Armstrong shut down MyDD in 2003 to work on Howard Dean's presidential campaign. After lying dormant for a year, MyDD was re-launched with the Scoop blogging platform in March 2004, with blogger Chris Bowers. MyDD was instrumental in online campaigning and organizing of grassroots action to elect Howard Dean as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee in January, 2005, with "the pro-Dean site MyDD.com, which served as a key clearinghouse of information about the race."
Several early contributors to MyDD became prominent in politics on the Internet. Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of the most-visited political blog in the world, Daily Kos, began commenting on MyDD before starting his own blog in May 2002, and refers to Armstrong as his "blogfather".
Armstrong attended the California State Democratic convention in Sacramento in March, 2003 with Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos.
Mathew Gross, creator of the blog on Howard Dean's website, was another contributor to MyDD. Joe Trippi, former campaign manager for Howard Dean, met and hired Gross based on Gross' involvement with MyDD. "One day, soon after we'd moved to a larger quarters in a South Burlington office park, I looked up to see this tall young guy with an earring and a nearly shaved head wandering around the office. Security had just grabbed him and was hauling him away when he yelled out to me: 'Wait! I blog on MyDD.com!' This was, of course, the political Web site where I'd first heard about Meetup.com. 'You're hired!' I yelled."
...
Wikipedia