It’s a new year and while I continue to be drawn to the realm of web 2.0 I have a new addiction – the ’08 election.

The race is far from over – as it’s only just beginning – and despite ones political aspirations the candidates, their platforms and the overall race itself is fascinating to say the least. But what perhaps is the most interesting piece of it all is that there is not necessarily a disconnect between the election (particularly the “Obama Phenomenon”) and web 2.0, but rather a metaphorically speaking correlation.

An article I read this morning entitled, The Culture Root for Web 2.0 and Barrack Obama (@ Web 2.0 Journal), looks at this very issue.

On the other side, if you take a look at Web 2.0, doesn’t the Obama story remind us of something? Ajax came out from nowhere and took the developer world like a wildfire. Rich Internet Application (RIA) is becoming the de facto way of writing applications within just a couple of years, defying the existing establishments that have dominated the world of programming for decades. FaceBook, MySpace, YouTube, etc. and the other many Web 2.0 startups, typically started by some young inexperienced kids that nobody has heard of, suddenly became the center of our digital life. Time magazine’s “Person of 2006” is “You”. This “web 2.0” phenomenon is also taking our world by storm.

Likewise, similar questions can be asked: What is the reason for this “Web 2.0” phenomenon? Why now?

This particular race is worth staying on top of for so many reasons including the many implications based on who is elected, but it’s with an added twist – the integration of social media and the simple increased power of the web. The role the web has played has been instrumental and will continue to be so as the ’08 election plays out. It is safe to say that the rules of engagement are changing and politics (if not life) will never be the same.