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Congrats to the super awesome Jackie V who won the first round of artists who won the DemROCKracy Band Competition!

If you don't know Jackie V you are missing out. She's 18 years old this year and has gone above and beyond to register voters on her MySpace page as well as in her community. She's been playing the piano since she was a little girl and now plays some edgy pop with a jazz twist all over Austin, Texas.

We caught up with Jackie today to present her with her beautiful new Gibson Guitar and encourage her to keep up the good work to get to the big Rock the Vote Concert Extravaganza in August!

Check out Jackie as she receives her guitar:

Crossposted from Rock the Trail

Streaming LIVE!!

It's crazy how hard it is to find the time to actually write a blog at a bloggers conference.

Yesterday morning I went to the From Dean to Obama: Four Years in the Internet Revolution Panel. Both Joe Trippi and Karl Frisch were dropping some comedic gold throughout the entire panel. I think the most valuable comment was from Joe, who said that we are in an awkward transition between an era where authenticity is valued (the internet) and the era of the 30 second spot. Because of this, snippets of our authenticity end up being taken out of context and turned into 30 second spots.

The next panel I attended was called What's Next for the Next Generation. The panel was actually just a long infomercial for Qvisory. They bill themselves as an AARP for young people. The problem is that they are trying to become the AARP at their inception, and that isn't possible. Qvisory offers a lot of great tools for young people to manage their finances, get health care, etc. Unfortunately they are stuck in the mindset that they need to be an advocacy organization as well. They would totally be more successful marketing Qvisory as a service and not as some lobbying entity. The AARP did not start out as the powerhouse it is today. It took a long time to build their organization to the point of being an advocacy organization as well. Qvisory doesn't get that.

Another problem is the fact the Qvisory spends all their money on consultants to design their logo, website, etc. and then when we brought up strategies to spread the word to people they said they don't have the resources. Hey, guess what. If you don't spend all your money on consultants that are going to come up with a crappy name you would have those resources. And oh, by the way, you can get people to promote your organization that aren't being paid to do it. They don't get that either. And the sad part is that Qvisory actual offers a very good service that young people should know about.

After that a bunch of us youth vote people hung out for awhile waiting for the coming parties. Somehow, the entire Future Majority team and Ian McGruder thought it was an hour earlier than it actually was, so we ended up missing the Huffington Post/GQ Politics party. Luckily Kos had a party as well and we ended up at that.

Speaking of the Kos party, this just may be me getting older in the youth vote movement, but what is the deal with having a party where people are supposed to talk to eachother and socialize with a band playing so loud you can't hear anything? Seriously, it was annoying, and it was Zydeco.

I'm attending a panel right now about using social media to build an audience for your blog. It features Matt Browner Hamlin, the Online Director for the Mark Begich Senate Campaign (fomerly of the Dodd campaign and Students for a Free Tibet), Jason Rosenbaum of the Sentinel, Josh Nelson and Cheryl Contee.

Jason and Josh just are discussing best practices for getting content noticed on social news sites like Digg, Reddit, Buzzflash and Stumbleupon and they made an important point. It's very hard to get noticed by A-list bloggers or to break through the clutter on Daily Kos to get on the Recommended list or promoted to the front page. If you don't have solid connections to those bloggers already, trying to get them to link to you is not a great strategy to get noticed and build traffic (even if the audience of those blogs might seem like the most low-hanging fruit). While it may seem daunting to try to break into these social news communities, it can be a more efficient and successful strategy than trying to break through in the A-List blogs.

Other useful tips for using these site:

• Live or die by the headline. Most people try to convey their point and get people to click through to their article. That's a mistake. If you don't get on the front page, you are not going to get a lot of hits. So your goal in writing a headline should be to convince the reader to give you a vote.
• Be good community members. Don't just spam the site, but contribute other interesting articles not written by you.
• Engage the commenters. Just like on Daily Kos, you have to engage the community to build traffic and votes. And on sites like Digg, the number of comments can impact the algorithm and play a role in getting you on the front page.
• Have a small pool of allies - readers or cobloggers - to help jump-start your article with a few votes. It takes no time and on smaller sites like Buzzflash it can quickly help you get to the front page.

Videos from our exciting Youth Caucus Extravaganza! Might have to give it a sec its still loading..

Never thought I'd get these uploaded... rest below the jump

Sorry it has taken so long to post a report from Netroots Nation - it's easy to get sucked in here talking to all the people that I only get to see once or twice per year. If you don't feel like we're shedding enough light on what's happening, you can go check out the live Ustreams from four or five of the ballrooms here at the convention center.

Kevin and Sarah have both been here longer than I, and they've got great write-ups of what's happened so far. In particular, you should all go and read Kevin's thorough recounting of the panel on the DNC and Obama for America's online tools.

I wanted to add some thoughts to what Kevin wrote about the Youth Caucus. First, apparently there was no pre-organizing involved in this event. In fact, I think the NN08 organizers just put it up on the schedule without consulting anyone about it. As a result, people milled around for awhile and then Nate from the Roosevelt Institution got everyone to sit together and began a conversation. Next year, there should be a lot more planning involved in this event. Other caucuses featured elected officials, or had pre-set agendas. Something a little more structured might be useful for all the young attendees next year.

The discussion - started by Rob Anderson from Campus Progress - revolved around one central question: What is this "youth movement?" Is it about an age demographic, or is it about a generational policy agenda (and which should it be)?

I was pretty burnt out yesterday from my early flight, so I didn't contribute much to the discussion. That was actually a good thing - it was nice to hear what younger folks are thinking five years into this "youth movement." A day late, I'd like to inject just one thing into the debate.

You can't really talk about this thing we all call the new progressive "youth movement" without context about how it arose. Five years ago, there were very few organizations working with and on behalf of young people in progressive politics - the PIRGS, USSA, College and Young Dems. For the vast majority of young people, recently politicized by 9/11 and the Iraq War, these organizations were viewed (sometimes rightly) as either ineffective or culturally out of touch. There was a vacuum - real and perceived - in youth politics. We lacked the structures to identify and mentor new leaders, and the institutions to engage a significant part of the youth electorate.

Out of that came a lot of entrepreneurial activism to create those structures, and when we talk about a youth movement in the last five years, that is what we are referring to - the movement to create those institutions and engage young voters in the process.

The question is itself significant in that we've finally arrived in a place where a lot of those structures are in place, young voters are being taken seriously, and now building infrastructure is no longer enough in and of itself. We have to ask the question "to what end?" A few years ago, that question wasn't even possible because none of us were gathered together in any coherent way with anyway to influence the debate. That's a great place to be in and it's light years ahead of where we were five years ago. Let's recognize that.

I also want to highlight a point that Matt Lockshin of California YDA brought up. Despite all these gains, there is still a huge population that is not being served by these institutions we've created. Young people in underserved communities, communities of color, and non-college youth are still not engaged in to what we are doing in any significant way, in large part because we focus on very different issues, we talk about these issues in vastly different ways, and most importantly, these issues affect our lives in very different ways. That's a huge gap that needs to be filled and it actually bridges both of the issues we discussed, the infrastructure and the issues.

One final note - as a number of people have pointed out, Netroots Nation seems significantly younger than in previous years. Are the netroots getting younger, or is the event just gaining a higher profile among younger activists? Don't know.

Sorry, I forgot to post this morning. I'm at NN with Kevin and Mike and have been trying to splice the video from our Youth Caucus yesterday so we can post it here. For today however... I bring you the Sumbprime Blues - my latest Rock the Trail Blog post.

The US Senate passed a housing and foreclosure prevention bill last Friday. This is in effort to stop the growing foreclosures on homes and families in crisis. The bill would create a $300 billion government-backed foreclosure prevention program and increase oversight of major government backed lending institutes Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

However, this Monday the Federal Reserve announced the approval for a "final rule for home mortgage loans." The Fed says this final rule "prohibits unfair, abusive or deceptive home mortgage lending practices and restricts certain other mortgage practices. The final rule also establishes advertising standards and requires certain mortgage disclosures to be given to consumers earlier in the transaction. "

But according to a CNN report, consumer groups believe these new regulations

"contain too many loopholes, allowing reckless lending to continue. Industry executives say the proposals place too great a burden on lenders and will prompt them to further restrict credit."

Oklahoma RoseRock Bank Senior Vice President Sue Pyle says the home foreclosure crisis and new guidelines will have a major effect on new home buyers, who are often young.

"These new changes in the underwriting guidelines make things more difficult for first time home buyers," Pyle says. "When a loan application is submitted it's reviewed in much more detail with more financial documentation. What could have been approved in the past may not be today."

One monumental item Pyle says, is the increased importance of a buyer's credit score. With recent changes the minimum requirements have been increased substantially.

"If you missed a few student loan payments, which resulted in your score being lower, this could prevent you from being able to buy a house. It wasn't that tough in the past."

In addition to requiring a higher credit score, the minimum down payment required has gone up.

"We are seeing guideline changes where a great deal more financial documentation is required including deposit statements, pay stubs, with many more items being verified and re-verified than in the past," she says.

She describes a client who recently submitted 2 years of tax returns, 2 years of W2 forms, 2 recent, consecutive pay stubs, a verbal verification of the borrower's employment was completed by the mortgage processor, as well as another verification by the mortgage underwriter. This example was a home buyer that had very high credit scores and sufficient down payment funds Pyle explained.

"Even after all of that," she said, "the mortgage investor re-verified employment after the loan closed. In the past new home buyers could get a home loan with zero money down and the only verification of employment completed was one pay stub. Many changes have taken place. All home buyers, including first time home buyers, have been effected."

The changes are also causing problems for all residents who are renting homes. Investors renting homes also have stricter requirements, like bigger down payments. These end up being passed on as higher monthly rental payments. At the same time, some homeowners buy a property at an adjustable rate. This means as time goes on the interest rate on the loan fluctuates up and down and can influence the cost of the payment on the house. If someone is renting that house it means their rent can go up and down, too.

A story about local rent prices near Howard University was posted in the Hilltop Online. According to local resident R'Keim Young the cost of housing was so much that he had to go back to living in the college's dorms.

"Within the last two years, prices have risen significantly," Young said. "The same houses that were about $500 monthly have now gone up $300 more."

Housing foreclosures on younger families also have a critical impact on children. According to First Focus, a Washington DC based organization that advocates on behalf of children

"An estimated 2 million children are directly impacted by the subprime mortgage crisis as their families lose their homes due to foreclosures."

First Focus's recent report shows:

• "Due to the increasing number of foreclosures, school districts across the country are experiencing increases in the number of homeless children entering their classrooms;
• Children impacted by the mortgage crisis are likely to experience excessive mobility and as a result are only half as likely to be proficient in reading as their peers. Moreover, they are much more likely to be held back and eventually drop out of school;
• Children forced from their homes experience behavioral problems, such as increases in violence."

The crisis has inspired a number of comedic mash-ups. This one, from NauticalFilms, features the Rambo solution, and BillyBobStewart brings us The Subprime Blues.

It's 3:30 here in Austin and I have already packed in a bunch of activities.

First, I attended the DNC & Obama for America: The Tools - Online Tools for Social Networking with Chris Hughes and Judith Freeman of the Obama campaign.

This panel was essentially about Obama for America's social networking strategy. Chris did most of the talking and did a very impressive job. This guy knows his stuff. The majority of the time was spent on the my.barackobama.com social network. Chris talked about how the purpose of myBO is to enable everyday people to bring about change as easily as possible.

He talked about how the campaign focused more on function than form. MyBO may not be the flashiest and best technology around, but it is designed to be as useful as possible. However, Chris says that they are working on improving the user interface of the site.

The core of myBO is about communities and the campaign's ability to pay attention to the community of supporters and to get them to use the tools in their own communities.

They spent some time talking about the new platform house party program, and how it is loosely structured to enable people to make their own events as relevant as possible to their communities. A couple of interesting things about the platform program: they created a really great host guide that makes organizing an event much less intimidating and they have staff follow up with party hosts throughout the process.

They talked about how myBO fits in to the Obama field program. People that were interested in helping did not have to wait for official campaign staff to come to their area in order to help the campaign. They made sure that there were a lot of things for people to do on the site no matter what their interests and preferences are.

There are three main ways that they organize on Facebook.

1. Campaign page: 1,150,000 supporters. They use it as a communications medium and do a lot with video. They use the page's update functionality to message their members.
2. Using local groups religiously. Everyone in field organization was told that they needed to create a Facebook group locally. If a lot of people join a group in a local network it makes it more likely to show up in people's feeds. This allows the size of the group to increase and then you have a direct line of communication to those people. There are significant ripple effects if you do it locally. One person in campaign headquarters can't create all the groups, it is something that must be done locally.
3. Creating a Facebook application. An effective way for people who are supporters to keep up what they are doing and share that information with their friends.

MySpace. Chris calls it a phenomenally important communications tool. The pages are much more customizable and they can encourage people to embed their own logos or widgets. They have incredible flexibility. Emphasize lowering the bar to make it easy as possible with many options to get them to put stuff on their page, which results in lots of distribution very quickly. At the end of the day they want people to get engaged in other campaign activities. They are trying to incorporate all of this energy and interest into the campaign programatically while at the same time getting as much distribution as possible.

The calling tool on myBo is something that is very effective and it enables people to make phone calls from the campaign that could or would not go to a campaign headquarters to do it. It is especially effective for the elderly and people living in rural areas.

During the question period Chris was asked about peer-to-peer from someone from PIRG's New Voters Project. Chris says that the campaign has reached the same conclusions that the research has: peer-to-peer contact is extremely effective in reaching young voters.

Rob Dolin sent me a tweet during the panel asking why the campaign chose to create their own social network instead of just using existing ones. This is the answer: most of the users of the myBO functionality tend to be older than those people that already are active in current social networks. It enables everyone that is interested to participate with a full campaign functionality that is not available within current social networks. It also removed the difficulty of data integration.

Dean's Registration Kick-Off Rally

Next was the rally with Governor Dean kicking of the DNC's new voter registration program. Over 100 people were outside in the heat and were definitely excited. Dean actually talked a bit about young voters and their importance, and a young College Democrat spoke earlier as well.

Youth Caucus

We just finished up the youth caucus. We had good attendance and a very engaged discussion that did not want to end when our time was up. A lot of topics were discussed, including coordinated leadership pipelines, what is the youth movement, what are the important themes for young people, and a lot of discussion on young people that never went to college and how to reach them.

Jim Slattery, US Senate candidate from Kansas, dropped by and talked about youth issues. It's great to see candidates really putting the effort in to make young voters an important aspect of their campaigns.

Now I am sitting in the hotel lobby writing this post. I think I will be going to the OpenLeft Caucus at 4:30 and then the Readers and Writers mixer, followed by the Howard Dean keynote.

Funny thing just happened. A couple of guys were walking by in the hotel that weren't associated with Netroots Nation, and one says to the other: "there are a lot of people in this hotel using laptops, huh." I bet this lobby looks really strange to people that don't realize that there is a blogger conference going on.

I'll have more later.

At Netroots Nation, this year's Screening Series just kicked off. Films, shorts, discussions and workshops, the series touches the variety of places where film/video and political activism connect.

The lead-off offering: The Media That Matters Film Festival, an annual collection of shorts on social justice and awareness that are made available online so anyone can stream their own film festival.

The opening film drew applause -- and here's why I'm writing about it here. "Battleground Minnesota" features an 18-year-old Minnesotan who convinces every major state office-holder -- Dem and Republican -- to talk with him about why young people should care about voting.

He then remixes the interviews into a hip-hop music video -- where original rap is interspersed with Mark Dayton wearing "Dem" bling," Norm Coleman unbuttons his shirt to hang out, Tim Pawlenty is turned into a supporting role rapper, and Walter Mondale gets his turn on headphones.

It's hilarious, and inspirational -- it plays with the cultural and generational gaps between past generations and the current one, but also the power of music, technology and mischief to bridge that divide.

Check it out -- (and if you're at Netroots Nation, come by) -- and thank Media That Matters for making its festival free and open to the public.

I'm in the Jet Blue terminal at JFK waiting for my flight down to Austin for Netroots Nation. I hate flying, but I'm somewhat looking forward to the flight down - 4 hours with no internet will give me a lot of time to work on a few blog posts that have been rattling round in my head for the past week.

Living Liberally will post their usual Tues-Thurs blog later today, but the rest of the week will likely consist mostly of live blogs from Netroots Nation. If you're going to be down there, here's where you will find me. I'll be the guy with the fish logo on his credential.

Two more things before I head offline. First, thanks to everyone who has contributed to our little fundraiser for the Young Voter PAC. We're not at 50 donors yet, but we're inching our way up there. Please give a little bit if you can. Second, here's some reading to tide you over until I land and the live-blogging begins:

• Tremayne at Open Left reports on the massive increase in voter registration on the Democratic side. A lot of that is from Millennials.
• Anya Kamenetz has a new column about the new interest rate on student loans and strategies for getting rid of your student debt.
• She's also got a blog post up about how the economic downturn is affecting youth employment.
• If you care, Jib Jab has a new video up lampooning McCain and Obama and riffing off Bob Dylan. Personally, I never thought they were all that funny . . .
• Earlier this week, Bergerc84 posted a thoughtful piece about McCain's (lack of) youth outreach. Well the gossip rags are now reporting that the McCain Blogette had lunch with Heidi Montag from The Hills. I guess that's McCain's idea of ramping up the youth outreach???
• Finally, the National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights wants to know what Civil Rights 2.0 looks like and what Civil Rights means to Millennials. They're holding a YouTube competition to find out. They have a video, but the Jet Blue wifi doesn't seem to want to load YouTube so I'll have to embed it later.