MySpace

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.

Rock the Vote and MySpace released a new joint competition this week geared to increase voter registration online with their online widget.

According to CNET

Here's how it works: from now through August 14, bands with profiles on MySpace can install a tool on their pages that lets their fans register to vote. The first 25 bands to have 150 people register to vote through the tool will have their music featured in custom playlists on TouchTunes digital jukeboxes--you know, the kind you see in bars--and then the grand prize winner will get to be the opening act at Rock the Vote's "Ballot Bash" concert at the Democratic National Convention in Denver on August 25. They'll also get some new guitars courtesy of Gibson...

MySpace is hoping the contest will spark the interest of some of the many small-time bands that have a presence on the site and have used it to build up loyal fan bases. "Not only will the competition link MySpace's thriving music division with an active and successful field effort but it will also offer small bands, a core constituency of MySpace, the chance to open up for top talent," Lee Brenner, executive producer of political programming and director of the "Impact" political channel on MySpace, said in a release Tuesday. "This competition with Rock the Vote is furthering the democratization of music and the ability of bands to engage their fans through MySpace."

Recently I've talked about John McCain's potential (yet relative) attractiveness to young voters, at least for a GOP candidate, and noted that if he gave it half a shot, he might actually be able to somewhat hold-down Republican losses among young voters (though it is extremely unlikely he could actually beat or even tie Clinton or Obama among Millennials). Well it looks like the outreach has started, at least online.

Hat tip to Everyday Citizen for tipping me off to this:

The image comes from an ad now running on (Democratic candidate) Nancy Boyda's MySpace page. So McCain is obviously buying ads on MySpace. I'm not sure if this is a new strategy or an old one, but it is certainly a good one, as an article in the Washington Post made clear earlier this week (emphasis mine):

Obama aides say their goal has been to "build an online relationship" with supporters who will not only give money but also knock on doors and help register voters for the candidate. To do so, they have spent heavily on Internet ads -- $2.6 million in February alone, more than 10 times as much as Clinton and more than 20 times as much as McCain.

...

Obama has targeted unlikely sites, such as the conservative Washington Times, where an ad for the candidate appeared yesterday on the same page as a story about an economic speech he gave that morning. But a click on the ad did not lead to a request for donations; instead, it took users to a page where they could sign up for invitations to campaign events.

This approach -- not directly asking for donations -- has been part of the campaign's strategy of slow-walking its way into supporters' wallets. Newcomers are led to a blog and an online store and are offered a chance to join local Obama groups.

McCain's ad seems to have one thing going for it - like Obama's online ads it does not lead directly to a fundraising appeal, but rather seeks the support of young viewers for one of his policy platforms - reigning in government spending, ostensibly by cutting government pork. By asking those potential supporters to sign a petitions, McCain is looking to build up a list of young voters he can geographically target later in the campaign.

• The Nation notes the negative impact that complex voter registration laws have on youth turnout.
• The Wall Street Journal makes sense of the race for delegates in the Democratic nominating contest.
• Threat Level, the Wired politics blog, has a great piece in which Sarah Stirland interviews participants in the MTV/MySpace Super Dialogue about how online organizing is changing politics.
• NetSquared interviews Ben Rigby of Mobile Voter about his new book, analyzing best practices in online advocacy. Definitely worth a read.

Last night, four Presidential candidates participated in the final MTV/MySpace Candidate Dialogue. Dubbed "Closing Arguments," the event, which ran almost two hours, was a final chance for the candidates to make their arguments to young voters, who have played an influential role in the nominating process thus far.

The event was not very interesting in what it told us about the candidates - most viewers in the live audience had already decided which candidate would receive their ballot, and the candidates themselves said nothing new. Last night's event was interesting in that it revealed a new battleground for online organizing that will surely come into play during the general election.

When I arrived at the event at MTV studios in Times Square, a rally in support of Sen. Obama was already in progress. The Obama camp placed attendance somewhere around 300. Supporters were also there for Hillary and Ron Paul, though their numbers were much more modest. This wasn't all that unexpected. Obama has the most youth support by far, and he's been able to organize his supporters quite effectively on the ground.

The surprises came during the online polling when Ron Paul took his turn (all online polling results below):

I've long noted that the candidate dialogues were the most interactive events on the campaign trail, and I've been excited about the possibility that MTV and MySpace could create a feedback loop between the candidates and the online audience that would keep the candidates more honest in their answers and cut down on speculation among the punditry by providing a real-time glimpse into what young voters were thinking about the campaigns.

This didn't happen in previous Dialogues, where young voters overwhelmingly agreed with the answers provided by Senators Obama, Edwards, and McCain. My hope was that this feedback loop would emerge during last night's Q&A with one of the Republican candidates, who generally have views that contrast greatly with those of young voters.

Instead of that feedback loop, what I saw was a tactical assault by Ron Paul supporters to "win" the debate for their candidate. In question after question, Ron Paul scored much higher than I would have expected, and the Democratic candidates scored far lower than I thought possible.

For example, Darfur has long been a high priority with young voters, who are also multilateralists, and questions about the genocide have come up in almost all of the previous dialogues. When asked a question about Darfur, Dr. Paul laid out a non-interventionist plan for handling the crisis in which he equated direct involvement in solving the Darfur crisis to our intervention in Iraq. I expected Paul's answer to invoke a backlash in the online voting. Instead, he garnered a startling 61 percent support.

This level of support continued. 76 percent supported his views on how the country should have responded to 9/11. 78 percent supported his views on energy independence. 81 percent supported his foreign policy ideas, and fully half declared their intention to vote for Rep. Paul on Tuesday. To be sure, Ron Paul has some youth support, but this was above and beyond any support he's received thus far. Even in the Republican contests Huckabee, Romney and McCain have repeatedly done better among young conservative voters than Ron Paul.

These results were startling, but perhaps not unexpected. Ron Paul's support has mostly manifested itself on the internet, where he dominates social news websites like Digg and Reddit. This tech savvy was on display once again last night, and the Paulites were not content to limit their activity to boosting their candidate. They also worked to drag down his opponents.

This was confirmed when the Democrats - Obama and Clinton - had their turn. Sen. Obama scored just above or below 50 percent support on almost every question asked of him. This was far different from his first appearance on MTV, when he typically scored upwards of 75% support. Chris Cilliza of the Washington Post, the moderator in charge of the online component of the debate tried to explain Obama's low-marks as a manifestation of young voters desire for "experience" over the Senator's message of "change," but polling for Clinton not ten minutes later put the lie to that analysis. Sen. Clinton rarely scored higher than 25 or 30 percent support, despite the fact that younger people are participating in the Democratic primaries in far greater numbers than the GOP contests.

Last night, Obama's supporters showed their strength outside the venue with as they rallied for their candidate, but Ron Paul's supporters were the real winners last night. Yet again they were the first to break new ground in another online venue. Unlike the other campaigns, Paul's supporters figured out that the interactivity of the MySpace/MTV dialogues was a two way street; it could keep candidates accountable, but it could also be used by supporters to influence the kinds of questions their candidate received and how his performance was reported. Pauls supporters made last night's event another battleground for their online campaign, and gave their long-shot candidate another feather in his cap (even if they probably didn't improve his chances of winning the nomination).

This has implications beyond Super Tuesday. Due to the success of these events, MTV and MySpace will likely engage the eventually nominees for both parties next fall. Whoever those nominees are, if they are smart, they will learn last night's lesson and organizer their supporters accordingly.

Here's some video I took at the MTV/MySpace Super Dialogue tonight. First, the scene outside - a good sized Obama rally (which never stopped chanting for 2 hours straight), and a more modest gathering for Hillary and Ron Paul.

A quick look at the studio itself. My camera did not like the lights:

Here's the reaction from some of the student/youth participants. Since I covered this event for Tech President, I mostly focused on asking them what they thought of the interactive format.

You can read my live blog at Tech President here. I'll have a more thorough analysis of the event tomorrow, but one of the really interesting thing I noted was how poorly Obama and Clinton scored in the online polls. Chris Cilliza, one of the moderators, tried to spin it as a manifestation of the Change vs. Experience dynamic, but that wouldn't explain why both scored so low. On the other hand, Ron Paul scored quite high. I think this was another instance of Ron Paul followers showing their strength in internet organizing. The Flektor polls were just another tactical victory for them.

I'm about to leave my apartment and head over to the MTV studios in Times Square to watch their "Closing Arguments" Dialogue featuring Sens. Clinton and Obama, Rep. Ron Paul, and Gov. Mick Huckabee. I'll be live-blogging the event on Tech President assuming their are no technological snafus. I'll have a postmortem on the event here later tonight or early tomorrow.

Also, wanted to share these to great candidate videos:

MTV is about to announce that on Saturday, February 2nd, Hillary Clinton and Mike Huckabee will both participate in the ongoing MTV/MySpace Candidate Dialogues. Billed as a "Super-Dialogue," the event will offer any candidate polling with at least 10% support to address the MTV/MySpace audience, however only Clinton and Huckabe have accepted thus far.

Regular readers know that I think these dialogues are the most impressive use of the social web this cycle in creating real interaction between the public and the candidates. MTV's use of live-polling, unscripted questions, and on-line audience feedback represent the most dynamic public forum on the campaign trail. They are to the much-touted CNN/YouTube debates what CNN/YouTube is to traditional broadcast debates.

Originally, MTV and MySpace planned to air forums with all the candidates on the trail before the Iowa Caucus. That didn't work as planned, and only John McCain, John Edwards, and Barack Obama participated before the Hawkeye state cast their votes. Now, with February 5th - Super (Fat) Tuesday - approaching, Clinton and Huckabee will get their chance to address the nation's young voters.

Clinton is looking to eat away at Obama's base, as she did in New Hampshire. If she can capture enough of the youth vote, she could cripple Obama in the race for delegates. Huckabee, who won the youth vote in evangelical-heavy Iowa and South Carolina, is looking to do much the same: keep up his lead among young evangelicals, and prevent McCain or Romney from gaining ground among youth.

The program will air:

• Broadcast live on MTV, MTV2 and MTV Tr3ìs, with highlights on college network mtvU
• Streamed live online via MySpace (www.myspace.com/election2008) and MTV’s www.ChooseOrLose.com
• Distributed live to the Associated Press Online Video Network, encompassing more than 1,800 media sites with an aggregate reach of 61 million unique visitors – and nearly 600 local media outlets in Super Tuesday states
• Streamed live on mobile devices via MTV Mobile
• Broadcast live on radio via XM Satellite Radio, MTV and AP Radio
• Translated into Spanish and broadcast on ImpreMedia’s LaVibra (www.lavibra.com/candidatos)
• Live studio audience participating at MTV’s Times Square studio

The event will be here in NYC, so I'll be live-blogging from the studio audience.

The first Republican candidate has finally had their turn in the Myspace/MTV dialogues. Tonight Senator John McCain took questions from a live audience in Manchester, NH, supplemented by feedback from the Flektor Polling widget and IM comments from those watching via MTV, MTV.com, and MySpace, in both English and Spanish.

There were really two question on the table tonight - how would MTV an MySpace improve what has to date been the most participatory candidate forums in the campaign; and how would the feedback process developed by MTV and MySpace work when put up against a candidate who's position on a number of issues widely diverged from that of the audience?

On the part of MTV, there were a number of improvements. For the first time the event was simulcast on TV and the web, instead of rebroadcast later in the evening. This timing was also significant in that this was the first debate originally taped/streamed/aired when young professionals, students - everyone who would find this debate interesting and might want to participate online - could be at home to watch. Questions from the online audience were posted on-screen, making them easier to follow, and the moderator Cilizza seemed slightly more aggressive in his follow-ups (this could have been due to the more adversarial relationship McCain had to the audience than previous participants). Finally, in a nod to the growing Hispanic population - which is also a very young population - the event was simulcast in Spanish.

As for the feedback loop, it was definitely in effect, though not quite in the way that I expected. All in all, McCain did quite well. Throughout the evening, the Senator fielded a much wider range of questions than what the Republicans fielded at the recent YouTube/CNN Debate, something the Senator himself astutely noted. On questions about climate change and Darfur, he polled quite well, and by being frank with the audience about issues on which they disagreed (Iraq and troop withdrawals, the only question where more than 50% of the respondents disagreed with his answers), McCain managed to at least keep - if not enhance - his credibility during moments with high-gaffe/negative impact potential.

McCain seems to have skillfully walked a tightrope on the issue of Iraq. If he had become too defensive, or less artfully set up his disagreements with the audience, there might have been a backlash both in the polling and in the tone of followup questions. That didn't happen. Instead, McCain actually gained ground among the viewing audience during the debate, demonstrating a positive, rather than negative feedback loop with the audience.

While I expected a functioning feedback loop between a Republican candidate, and a young audience to create a great deal of pushback and an adversarial relationship with the candidate, in fact the opposite seems to have happened. At the beginning of the debate, the online audience was polled as to their opinion of Sen. McCain on "the issues." At the top of the hour, 60% of respondents either agreed with the Senator or thought they might. By the end of the evening, that number had risen to 72%. That's not bad for an hour's work, and ample evidence that Republicans can gain ground with young voters if they attempt to reach out and speak to them substantively and honestly on the issues - even if that means agreeing to disagree.

An interesting side-note to the evening was a video question submitted by What's Your Plan, a program of The New Voters Project, that seeks to ask all the candidates detailed questions about their policy proposals. When MySpace/MTV announced that they would air one video question from the viewing audience based on an open voting process, the group used a FaceBook group to organize support for their video about climate change.

There are still a few quibbles with the format. There could still be more follow-up questions on each issue, and they don't yet seem to have figured out how to handle cross-issue contradictions (for instance, McCain said multiple times that he would "fully fund" things, but also talked about cutting wasteful spending without talking about how those two positions might be contradictory in a Republican administration). Additionally, Cillizza, the online moderator, didn't inject himself enough into the debate when the candidate dodged, or when the background knowledge of the students was insufficient to really press a follow-up.

All in all though, MTV and MySpace keep upping the ante with these candidate forums, and in terms of creating a more transparent, participatory interaction between the candidates and a mass audience, they continue to blow CNN and YouTube out of the water. With one month to go before the Iowa Caucus, it seems unlikely that we'll get more than one more of these dialogues - if that - before the media crowns victors in both parties' nominating contests. As we enter the general election, these formats should become the gold standard for all future debates and televised forums.

John McCain just finished his turn in the MySpace/MTV dialogue. You can watch a feed of it here, and I've got the live-blog from Tech President and Flektor voting feeds below. The live-blog is interesting in that Josh Levy was actually in the audience tonight. The event was interesting in that McCain actually convinced a significant number of online/tv viewers to consider him as a candidate.

I'll have my own post-mortem live in an hour or so.