It brings together the individual video channels created by candidates including Barack Obama, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain. They can post videos addressing particular issues or other footage while members of the public can submit video responses or written comments.

Candidates do have veto power over what appears on their channels, giving them a measure of control over embarrassing or undesired video surfacing on the Web. Featured on the sites so far is mostly professionally produced video of candidates giving speeches or in television appearances.

"So far none of the presidential candidates have grasped what is essentially different about video online," said Michah Sifry, executive editor of Personal Democracy Forum. "They still treat it like television on a smaller screen."
 
But to find a politician who really knows how to use the Web, Sifry advised looking overseas to British Conservative Party leader David Cameron. His Webcameron site is "very casual, sincere and relatively unscripted," he said. "He's much further along than any American candidate online."

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