Welcome to Roots Report, where we hope to keep you informed about new developments in the world of politics and technology. Increasingly, technology — from database mining to social networking — is playing a more important role in the lives of political professionals and voters alike. We feel that it is important to give professionals current insights on what is happening in this arena so they can make informed decisions about how to leverage technology most effectively.

In my eyes, technology is important in a political or issue advocacy context only if it does one of these things:

Communicates message
Increases fundraising
Turns out voters

There are thousands of gadgets, widgets, apps and sites out there. Probably more. But how many of them will truly add value to your campaign or advocacy effort? So that’s what we’re going to look at here. What is the best technology available, and what is the best way to use it.