This is the year that the Presidential debates get their Web on. First, we had CNN and YouTube partner together for a set of debates where the questions came in the form of YouTube videos. And now ABC News is hitching its debate wagon to Facebook for the New Hampshire debates on January 5. Facebook already has many debate groups within its U.S. Politics section, and most candidates use it to reach out to potential voters. [Update According to a Facebook spokesperson: "The exact tie-in details to the televised debate are in development, but this will not be a case where there will be direct questions from users like you’ve seen in other debates. It’s more about having an ongoing, online companion to a real-world debate. Facebook users will be participating in debate groups on the site through the U.S. Politics application before, after and during the televised debate. The most popular issues will be surfaced for the televised debate."]
Yet in order for the the partnership not to be seen as just a marketing gimmick for the debates, ABC News should use its new Facebook page to collect questions from Facebook members and poll them about the issues they want the candidates to talk about. Hopefully this would work out better than the CNN-YouTube debates, which started out with a lot of promise, but was disappointing in the end because CNN didn’t pick the best video question submissions (IMHO). ABC News would be smart to use Facebook to develop a consensus around which issues are most important to people, and to sharpen those questions before they are submitted to the candidates.
Trying to keep those questions from the candidates (as CNN and YouTube did) is pointless. But ABC News could use Facebook itself to keep them honest by setting up a feedback mechanism during the debate that lets people vote on whether or not they think the candidates are actually answering the questions. They could call it the Waffle Meter, and broadcast it live during the debate. The candidates should be able to see it as well while they are giving their responses.
The Facebook audience is not representative of the country as a whole, and ABC should not try to pretend that it is. On Facebook, for instance Barack Obama is more popular than Hillary Clinton (or any other candidate) by a wide margin, whereas an ABC News poll among primary voters finds the opposite. The same thing is true on the Republican side, where Ron Paul and Mitt Romney have more support among Facebook members than Rudy Giuliani or John McCain. (You can also compare to how popular the candidates are on Digg). When CNN partnered up with YouTube, it was an attempt to reach out to a younger audience. But the video questions CNN chose turned out to be bland and (I think) an attempt to appeal to the broader, older audience who actually watches the debates. ABC News should not make the same mistake. The questions should reflect the concerns of people on Facebook, especially those under 35. Otherwise, why bother to partner at all?
ABC News has a chance here to involve voters in a truly participatory debate. It should set up a mechanism so that voters can not only submit questions on Facebook, but choose which ones get asked. Beyond the debates, ABC News is trying to use Facebook as a way for people to connect with its individual reporters as well. There are 13 ABC News reporters with Facebook pages so far, including Rick Klein, who writes the Note. If the debate goes well, maybe we’ll see Facebook become a platform for citizen-inspired journalism as well. But I wouldn’t count on it.
No comments to this post. Does anyone even care?
Where is the debate that includes Ron Paul these days? It seems like he is absent from a lot of the major media’s limelight, its really too bad. Oh well, let the candidate flaming begin.
http://www.tekbite.com
I suspect that the younger voters, though, while passionate about Ron Paul and Barack (as shown in the Facebook Stats) are less likely to vote.
We’ll see if this plays out in the polls.
The Iowa Electronic Market doesn’t list Ron Paul as a choice, yet “none of the above” (which includes him) is showing a recent uptick (still nowhere near Giuliani, though, at 19% compared to 40%.
Facebook applications for presidential debate!! Facebook have really used social graph well
Jeez, why does Techncrunch feature Facebook every other post.. it’s getting really tedious. Facebook this Facebook that. Bla bla.
I can’t wait to see the candidates handle such questions as “Who would win in a war between Ninjas and Pirates!” Or when somebody asks them how many vampire chumps they’ve bitten.
Of course, any smart candidate will be sure to work a few Chuck Norris jokes into their comments.
facebook is great and all, but techcrunch’s facebook coverage is too much.
You are spot on, Erick. These debates are a joke. I’m 21 and consider myself politically active, yet the CNN-YouTube debates never appealed to me or anyone I know. These partnerships are so stupid. CNN/ABC are just trying to look hip to old people who hear so much about YouTube and Facebook, but don’t understand the purpose of web 2.0. These partnerships don’t even bother to take advantage of the things that make web 2.0 so revolutionary in the first place. It’s all just a gimmick.
TechFaceCrunch!!!
odd, i dont see any refernces to the Obama Q and A on flektor/myspace…. i think you guys missed a few things out there…..
if the ABC/Facebook partnership can make US Politics interesting, more power to ‘em!
THIS question needs to be asked. See video: CNN/YouTube Republican Debate: Giuliani 9/11 Question Giuliani claims, “American foreign policy had nothing to do with the September 11th. September 11th happened because these people who hate us, hate us because of the freedoms that we have.” see my question
P2P live streaming has been officially enhanced by Chinese government since the begginning of 2007. As you see http://nba.spor.../01/index.shtml, people could enjoy NBA matchs online with p2p enpowered system from Koos ltd., a small company in west China.
It was predicted, In 2008, hundreds of Olympic matchs will be shown in CCTV.com by P2P streaming system with millions of users online simultaneously. Maybe that is the time for people to see P2P application by media industry.
–CCTV.com, as the name China Central TV station, is the majoy TV network in China with 75% the civil market.
I didn’t know about the CNN/YouTube debate and would have loved to see it, will have to watch for the Facebook one. Can I still view the debate on YouTube? I’ll have to go check when it’s not so late at night!
It’d be really interesting to see how this works out.
I think there are two possible outcomes:
1) Social networks (Facebook in this particular case) will become just another media to spread and advocate political views
2) Contrarily, social groups will be more resilient with regards to enforced political views.
I hope 2nd option wins.
Please vote at http://www.brat...ocial-politics/
I second your call for a truly participatory debate. Web properties like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, etc all ought to do more than reproduce the broadcast media’s tired, top-down approach to politics. That said, I’m disappointed that TechCrunch–which has been doing more lately to inform its readers about the candidates and their approach to tech issues–failed to take note of our 10Questions.com project, which has turned the YouTube/CNN debate format upside down, and garnered the support of more than 50 major political blogs and top media like the NYTimes Editorial board and MSNBC. You guys are great when it comes to discerning what’s happening in the world of tech, but if you’re going to report on how tech is affecting politics, I expect better.
Let me make one thing perfectly clear:
My disdain for Hellary has nothing to do with her supposedly being a woman! I love women and would vote for one for president readily. But, let’s not vote for Klinton just because of gender: think back to that administration, all of the spies, lies, corruption, deaths, smears, immorality, backstabbing, laws broken, drugs, bribes, Chinese spies, payoffs, character assinations, assasinations, investigations, using dead people, theft, obfescations, stealing china, destruction of public property, threats to bimbos, assaults, rape accusations, sex not sex, asprin factory murders, tyrant coddling, Whtewatering, Rose law firming, missing files, DNA disapearance, Foster bodies, Lies in diaries, lawyers commiting suicide, hidden agendas, payoffs, Luewinskiing, coverups, mismanagements, bodies in the parks, bodies in the cell, bodies in the water, nuclear secrets being sold, FBI files stolen, blackmailings, ….. all with Hellary right smack dab in the middle either orchestrating or covering up!
Use your memories people!
Other than that I have nothing against her.
http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com