Amazing! Internet debate attracts over 1M viewers (mashup w/HuffPo, Slate, Yahoo)

[babylonsister]

Internet debate attracts over 1M viewers

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer 25 minutes ago


WASHINGTON - An experimental online "mashup" — a build-your-own Democratic presidential debate — attracted more than 1 million viewers in the past 10 days, many of them young people drawn to the interactivity of the Internet.

But the most popular participant was not a candidate.

Comedian Bill Maher, who asked one of four questions posed to each of the eight candidates, attracted viewers 42 percent of the time. He quizzed the hopefuls about the Ten Commandments, marijuana legalization, the relative dangers of sugar, coal dust and terrorism, and the climate-changing impact of cows.

Yahoo, HuffingtonPost.com and Slate.com conceived the format as a way to give online viewers the ability to build a debate with video blocks of each candidate answering different questions on education, health care and the war from PBS host Charlie Rose. A "wild-card" question came from Maher.

The debate was taped two weeks ago and the three Internet sites posted the video on Sept. 13. Viewers can choose the candidates they want to see and hear, match them against a rival, ignore those who don't interest them and compare and contrast.

"We started off doing this as a public service," said Neeraj Khemlani, vice president of programming at Yahoo and producer of the debate. "It was in my mind, 'Let's go and try to help undecided voters.'"

As of this weekend, 1.1 million people had clicked on the debates. Of those, 429,000 were between the ages of 18 and 34, according to data compiled by Yahoo.

more...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070924/ap_po/online_debate

[Wilber_Stool]

1. Well,

so much for my level of awareness. I never heard of it. Oh well, off I go.

[SoCalDem]

2. This has to be scaring the bejeebus out of the candidates

real questions..demanding more than a soundbytey canned response :)

[babylonsister]

3. I love that so many people are tuned into it! nt

[Bitwit1234]

4. You know the republicans won't go for something like that

If the right wing ever, set up something like that, the questions would be fluff.

[Mojorabbit]

5. I totally

missed this also.