Making Social Networks More Powerful: Votizen

One really interesting (to me, anyway) new company in the social network space is a venture called Votizen. From the company's website:

Votizen is an online network of real voters who have expressed their commitment to be engaged citizens. A free service, Votizen allows its members — Votizens — to claim their voter profile, learn about issues and elections, and take collective action with other committed voters through social media. Backed by the original investors in Facebook and Twitter, Votizen is an independent company and is not affiliated with any political party, candidate or special interest group.

The basic idea is that a user signs up with their real name and the site links them to (a) their social network (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and their voter file (the state-maintained record of where registered voters live, which elections they have voted in, etc.). Being attached to the voter file gives the individual a lot more credibility in the eyes of politicians - instead of reading (or, more likely, probably not bothering to read) a tweet from crazystacy123, the politician knows that this is actually a constituent of his that is trying to get his attention. Users can do some online organizing, create petitions, connect with representatives, etc. The project is still in Beta testing.

The idea has a lot of power, but I think it could be pushed much farther to allow for even more robust forms of interaction. Connecting users with other voters in their district who care about the same issues and helping to facilitate offline interaction to supplement online interaction are a couple of ideas that spring to mind quickly...