SM Global Report: The Current TV-Twitter Deal

Putting Twitterville Closer to Candidates

[Current TV's Mario Anima. Photo by Laughing Squid.]

I have always been extremely optimistic about social media's potential for bringing people and politicians closer to each other. After all, the guys running are supposed to serve the rest of us, aren't they. Four years ago many people got excited when Howard Dean appeared to have started a blog and was answering comments. But then it turned out that Dean was using Joe Trippi to handle the blog while he remained adamantly clueless about them.

This year, most candidates have been very active in SM, setting up Twitter, Facebook and other accounts. Unfortunately, it has seemed to me, the tools have been used to get messages out and campaign contributions in.

No candidate has really tried using social media to actually listen to the people, which I believe is the killer app for government, politicians and constituencies. For the first time, there is technology that allows significant numbers of voter voices to be heard in venues larger than their own living rooms.

So, I was instantly elated when an announcement came a couple of days ago about a deal that will let Current TV and Twitter combine efforts to let people stream comments while during the four upcoming presidential debates, starting in Sept. 26 in symbolic Oxford, Mississippi.

Essentially, this is a massive mashup called Hack the Debate. Current TV was co-founded by Al Gore and former TV pop lawyer Joel Hyatt. There have been previous attempts to add online video and commentary to political events, particularly by uStream. But to my knowledge, there has never been anything like Hack the Debate. While this first effort, may be pock-marked with tech issues and Neanderthals who may slip by screeners to write nastiness, I believe it is a major step in the right direction for the future of democracy.

To understand exactly what is going on and what we can expect, I turned Mario Anima, director of online community for Current [tweet: @manima) to get some of the details that the initial stories seem to have skirted over.

1. Mario, is this a wide open project. Who can comment through Hack the Debate and how do others find our comments?

The  debate page is 100% open to submissions on relevant topics. Anyone interested in clipping stories can tag their submissions with “Hack the Debate” and they will appear on that page. It’s sort of like a pre-debate mash-up of related information.

Also, we’ll be keeping an eye on the broader discussions taking place around the Twittersphere, but we’ll be focusing on tweets that include the #current hashtag. We’ll try to monitor all comments, but it makes sense to focus on anyone who’s choosing to participate in the discussion via the hashtag.

2. Is Al Gore actually involved in Current or is this a case of him co-founding, adding the credibility of his name and moving on?

Al Gore is definitely involved. He weighs in on what we cook up in-house, and he’s very supportive in regards to this sort of thing.

3. Why was Current TV selected to participate in the debates rather than say uStream? What will you be doing that is different than what other live streamers may do?

We purchased the rights to air the debates because we know our audience is engaged in this election. The main differentiator between CurrentTV and uStream is the finished output — we have a cable TV network to utilize, so one of our focus points on the Current.com side of things is figuring out how to make a two-screen experience (from online to television) a reality. It’s a tough problem to solve, because it requires sewing together two vastly different ways of doing things.

4. Why did CurrentTV decide to partner with Twitter on this project?

When you look at microblogging, as a form of back channeling during major events, its obvious that Twitter is at the hub of this type of thing. Since I arrived at Current in February, it’s become clear that we need to get out there and let others know a little bit more about what we’re up to, what we’re open to try, and some of the things that interest us in regards to experimenting in both online and broadcast arenas. Melding the online and broadcast experience is really at the center of this Twitter/Current debate initiative, and it’s sort of a Phase I for what we refer to as building out a set of APIs for online content and communities in regards to television.

5. How challenging is the technology involved?

It’s a pretty hefty undertaking. We’re working steadily to get our platforms in place to help facilitate more of these types of ventures more often, so while we’re confident with where we’re at for the debates, we're trying to make the process more robust yet streamlined for the future.

6. How challenging will the logistics be? What happens if 100,000 tweeters all wish to tweet at once?

We’d love to automate everything, but there’s going to be some manual activity. The tweets will all be rendered in flash in an overlay stream during the broadcast. We’re also cognizant of the broadcast restrictions that are out there, so we’ll be filtering out inappropriate tweets from the rest of the bunch. Our goal is to show as much of the Twitter conversation on-air as we can, while still maintaining a good viewing experience. Bottom line, we’re trying to make this as flexible as possible so we can adjust as needed.

7. How do you think the Current-Twitter participation will change the world.

I hope it has an impact. Reading through the tweets during the primaries, DNC, and RNC, there was a lot of really intelligent discussion taking place. Sure, there was noise too, but people have insights that are worth getting out there. I have a group of friends who have been partaking in a non-stop debate via email since before the primaries. They are all extremely intelligent people who hold high positions in their respective fields, but all of this knowledge and discussion is buried in the inboxes of 30 or so recipients. If our little effort does anything, I hope it gives people like them the opportunity to weigh in on the issues discussed in a very visible way. Ultimately it would be nice if this was a small step towards moving traditional broadcast television away from the voices of the few to a conversation of the many.