Google is getting some major national exposure for both its AppEngine platform and Google Moderator, a simple tool that helps groups determine which questions should be asked at all hands meetings, conferences, Q&A sessions, etc. The White House is using Moderator, hosted on AppEngine, to determine which questions President Obama should answer at an online Town Hall meeting on Thursday.
In just a few hours 6,932 people have submitted 7,037 questions and cast 236,048 votes on the site – which proves out the AppEngine promise that you can build highly scalable applications with little effort. The top question, based on votes so far, is “As a student, who like so many others works full time and attends school full time, only to break even at the end of the month. What is the government doing to make higher education more affordable for lower and middle class families?”
Google also hosts the President’s video message for the meeting, on YouTube. I’m surprised he’s not wearing a Google tshirt, too. Google should be paying him an endorsement fee for all this promotion (Obama previously used Moderator for his Change.gov transition site).
See our recent coverage of Google Tip Jar, which also uses Moderator.