MySpace and Commission on Presidential Debates Offer Exciting Web 1.0 Functionality!

Update: At the Washington Indpendent, Ari Melber confirms that a proposed interactive forum hosted by Google down in New Orleans is likely scrapped.

Micah at Tech President beat me to it, but I just want to echo that the proposed partnership between MySpace and the Commission on Presidential Debates, announced this morning, represents a step back from the innovation that we saw during the primary process.

This morning, MySpace and the Commission on Presidential Debates announced a partnership designed (theoretically) to bring Web 2.0 to the normally stodgy and uninformative Presidential debates:

MySpace and the CPD will jointly launch ‘MyDebates.org’ – a new website which will house online tools to promote deeper levels of political engagement with viewers at home. Visitors to the site will have the option of downloading a personalized application which, during the debates, will stream the television event live from the embed location (e.g. within a blog, social network, or website). The application will also provide users with an on-demand playback functionality as well as issue-based tracking, allowing users to track a candidate’s stance on issues they care about throughout the live stream. The full functionality will be available in the days leading up to the first Presidential debate on Friday, September 26.

Additionally, ‘MyDebates.org’ will feature high-quality video streaming and as the candidates are speaking, “issue icons” will light up as candidates discuss specific main topics. Users will be polled periodically throughout the debates with short questions with multiple choice answers (or iconic responses, e.g. thumbs-up/ down). This format will reduce distraction while eliciting specific and valuable feedback.

In short, here's what debate 2.0 means to the CPD:

• Debates streaming on the web.
• A rewind button.
• Embeddable widgets of said live stream
• (Potentially condescending) issue icons popping up all over the screen
• Occasional and simplistic polling that may or may not be used to determine the direction of questions.
• Tagged, searchable and embeddable clips of the debate available the next day.
• 1 debate where the candidates may face pre-screened audience questions.

Notice anything missing? How about greater, unfiltered interaction between the candidates and the audience. Web 2.0 is about social media. Meaning we talk to each other, not at each other. That's what MTV and MySpace had during the candidate dialogues last year, and that's what is missing from this proposal.

During the previous dialogues, questions from the live audience were always unscreened and never dumbed down. The polling was continuous, nuanced (the audience had six potential choices, not simply "yes or no") and was viewable at all times by the live audience, the moderators, AND the candidates. These polls were often used as a guide for follow-up questions, many of which came in over IM from the live-stream audience. It was that feedback loop, coming in over multiple channels, that forced the candidates out of their talking points and into a real conversation sans sound byte or spin. That unfiltered interaction between the candidates and the public is what made the MTV candidate dialogues interesting and informative. That kind of interaction is largely missing from this proposal.

Here's another question. Why do I want to watch these debates on a live stream of crappy quality when I could just watch them on the TV? I didn't watch the MTV Dialogues on line because I wanted to. I did it because I had to (and complained bitterly about how often the whole system crashed, necessitating a reboot of my browser). They were streamed live, but they were not aired live, and there was no other way to participate. I would be more than happy to watch the debate live on TV while participating in polling and other social features using my laptop. Or, wouldn't an SMS-based polling system work much better for a live national audience? The success of American Idol would lead me to believe so.

I will say that tagging and creating a searchable database of clips by issue and by candidate is a useful feature - especially for people to discuss the coverage on their blogs and social networks in the following days - but the rest of the proposal is pure web 1.0.