For those who didn’t watch the “debate” last night on TV or participate online, TPM provides a one minute highlight reel of instantly forgettable soundbites:
Aside from the unremitting craziness of the GOP hopefuls on stage, Google and Fox set a new standard in terms of the interactive online format that could well become the model for future events. Online viewers were not only provided with a live stream of the debate, but several interactive features allowing them to post comments reacting to the discussion in real time, link out to social media sites, and vote on instant polls corresponding to the issues being debated.
All good and quite fun… when it was working. Unfortunately, that wasn’t often. Most of the time the rolling comment feature was disabled from server overload and the instant polls jammed out, failing to register votes or provide feedback but repeatedly dishing up annoying CAPTCHAs. Pity, as I really wanted to see how many people thought that “cutting jobs” was the “strategy most effective for creating jobs”…
As for the questions for the candidates derived through Google’s “crowd sourcing” technology, they were predictably mundane and obtuse as one would expect from the worldwide rabble, with a couple of notable exceptions such as this one…
Too bad it got served up to homophobic no-hoper Rick Santorum rather than getting a full airing amongst all of the candidates.
Red Tory v.3.0.3 