Many fault Dean for such missteps as his fiery Iowa concession speech, though a minority have a more conspiratorial view. They argue that television networks replayed and ridiculed the speech because they saw Internet power as a threat to TV's hold over communications.
"Dean was being systematically slimed," Barlow wrote in a blog entry titled "The Counter-Revolution Has Been Televised." "The empire struck back, and it struck back hard."
Some of the most direct self-criticism has come from technology consultant Clay Shirky, a Dean contributor and adjunct professor on new media at New York University. Shirky said Dean supporters and campaign officials were deluded by what they were doing right but that didn't add up to votes.
"The volume of interest that came from rallying the faithful looked, to us, like a surface sign of 10 times the interest underneath," Shirky said. "This bubble of belief was staggering."
Yet even Shirky thinks that the Dean campaign is a harbinger of a more interactive political future.
Following Dean's lead, Clark, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards have turned to Meetup, blogging and online fundraising as well.
"The messenger exploded, not the message. The message has been adopted in part by other candidates and other causes," said George Washington University professor Michael Cornfield, whose book "Politics Moves Online" will be published later this month.
"There are obvious lessons from the Dean campaign, but 'Do not use the Internet' is not one of those lessons."
Next-generation software could help assign volunteers to talk to voters they know, or with whom they share friends. And the flow of information on candidate Web sites could become more comprehensive and objective, or include more back and forth with campaign officials.
"Campaigns have been structured around the broadcast model, with one person speaking and everyone else listening," said Dean advisor and "Cluetrain" coauthor David Weinberger, who said he would work for any Democratic nominee.
At least, he said, the Dean campaign's ability to connect supporters "shows a direction toward the answer."
The most important lessons from the Dean campaign, Searls said, are that the grass roots are now interconnected and that candidates and the government will be held accountable.
In the long run, it doesn't matter that Dean got run over by the parade that drafted him, he said.
"He's the Wright brothers' first airplane. You wouldn't want to put passengers on it. But that doesn't mean it isn't important."
