On Saturday I flew back from the Personal Democracy Forum, the fourth annual gathering of tech-savvy political bloggers in New York. At Friday’s main event, the several hundred attendees heard Eric Schmidt, Lawrence Lessig, Thomas Friedman and others discuss the state of the political process in the Internet Age.

But most of the interesting action took place off-stage in the hallways and at Saturday’s unconference, where dozens of participants swapped business cards and agendas. A sense of passion and energy filled every corner of the event.

Tomorrow morning I fly to Miami to take part in the E&P/MediaWeek Interactive Media Conference & Trade Show, and the contrast could not be more striking. I don’t want to prejudge the gathering, but I expect a far less upbeat crowd, as newspaper circulations continue to plummet (here’s one reason why) and the transition to the online medium is a sometimes painful thing to watch.

As the new media landscape continues to shift and emerging media forms emerge, one takeaway is that niches of passion hold much more appeal to readers than the traditional structures of objectivity and dispassionate reporting erected in another era. When was the last time you saw an online newspaper crusade for a reform, urge you to sign an online petition, or give you organizing tools to go out and make a difference in your community?

It would be an interesting experiment to create widgets around political reform, community activism, public-spirited fund-raisers, organizing toolkits, or other passion-based campaigns. In other words, widgets of passion.

But somehow, I don’t expect any such heretical ideas to come out of Miami.