Chuck Olsen was a videoblogger that was on board the Edwards plane too. He posted a video of some random moments on the trip — nothing substantial yet.

UPDATE: Sorry for continuing to post about Edwards. It’s just I’ve gone through my 450 feeds and there just isn’t that much going on in the tech world this weekend. Happy New Years! We’ll get back talking tech after everyone gets back to work on Tuesday. This week I’m interviewing some of Intel’s top technologists (rumored to include Gordon Moore, you know, the guy who’s name is on “Moore’s law.”) What do you want to know about Intel and the process of building the processors that are inside your computers?

This post from Google’s Matt Cutts, that I just posted to my link blog, demonstrates why I think Matt is one of the best things going at Google in terms of relations with the outside world right now.

One piece of advice for Matt: Google will be judged unfairly. It has a dominant position in our society now. When a company gets to that role, it has to switch and become more transparent, more open, nicer, and more willing to consider those outside its doors. It will do Google a lot of good to bring some of that self-questioning into public view. I think you can do it without making your coworkers feel bad (although, personally, if you are really trying to change the world for good and are building systems that hundreds of millions of people will use, get a tougher skin and be willing to put up with some crap too. Believe me, it’s hard to take that medicine, though).

Now, I can just hear some of you saying that Google shouldn’t listen to that advice at all and should just continue being a hard-charging startup-style tech company that remains secretive about what it’s up to. I think that’s bad advice, and I point to how Microsoft behaved in the 1990s (and its current reputation) as evidence.

Google still has a lot of love for it around the world. It could do a lot worse than listening to Matt’s advice.  He’s one of Google’s best “conversationalists” around. A lot of the rest of Google’s blogs feel “PR controlled,” which is fine, but as Southwest is learning, if you don’t admit to your warts in public people will assume you aren’t listening and learning — two attributes Googlers tell me they definitely want Google to be known for.

I was just reading Memeorandum and saw this article by Dan Balz, of the Washington Post, which uses this line: “Edwards 2.0 is a revised version of his beta candidacy of 2004.” I remember when a staffer first saw someone use that moniker, showing his Blackberry over to Edwards, and saying “I hate when they say ‘Edwards 2.0’.” Edwards himself didn’t seem to mind, though.

By the way, Dan’s article is right on point with what I observed — that Edwards has spent a lot of time overseas beefing up his foreign policy depth. After spending several hours getting a grade-A education in politics from Dan (he’s been covering politics for the Washington Post since 1978) I’m now a huge fan and will read everything he writes.

Why did the staffer care so much? My guess? Because he knew that “2.0 moniker” causes debates on tech blogs. Many geeks hate the name Web 2.0 although it’s starting to stick as a descriptor for a wide range of sites that have community interaction and new-style technology and layout.