I was going to include Nate Silver's name in the headline for this post, but he's better known by his Web site, FiveThirtyEight.com, which -- with good reason -- has become a sensation this campaign season.

Here (h/t Romenesko) is part of the backstory:

Political commentary on the Internet is nothing new these days.

My piece on the RI blogosphere has generated a lot of feedback, and as mentioned in a brief sidebar with the print piece, I want to highlight some of the other noteworthy blogs in the Ocean State.

Jack Templin of the Providence Geeks launched RI Nexus last year, and it seems like a great resource for the local tech community and people looking to learn more about it.

Don't get me wrong. I love the speed with which Google, the Internet, and other forms of new technology enable me to find information, and how blogging offers a faster way to break news than through being just in traditional print.

Yet all is not well and good, particularly in the political realm. A number of observers have been weighing in with the viewpoint that, well, things just aren't as good as they used to be.

BlogNetNews, an aspiring national blog aggregator, has launched a Rhode Island site. It has all your faves -- RI's Future, Anchor Rising, Daily Dose, Belo Blog, and, yes, N4N.

A fellow named David Mastio dropped me an e-mail with the following skinny:

The heart of the site is an aggregator that reposts the begining of the latest posts from blogs across the state and then links back to the originating blog for readers who want to check out the whole thing.

Last night's Providence Geek Dinner featured the official launch of RI Nexus, an ambitious new Web site from the RI Economic Development Corporation, which is meant to strengthen Rhode Island's growing information technology-digital media sector.

Jack Templin and Andy Cutler visited with N4N yesterday to talk up the site.

More than a decade after the Internet became a household word, the Web continues to evolve in new and fascinating ways.

60 Minutes offered a look last night at how Redfin (motto: buy a home online and save about $10,000), an Internet-based company in the Pacific Northwest, is chipping away at the six percent commission claimed on home sales by Realtors.

As promised, Erica Sagrans has an excellent story in this week's Phoenix about the netroots and their efforts to use technology to increase political participation and diffuse political power. Erica's piece looks at this locally and nationally, and includes a fascinating anecdote of how a ring tone became a major headache for the president of the Philippines.