The Web on the Candidates

• MSNBC produced a very cool interactive feature called "Rate the Candidates" to accompany their broadcast of the Democratic presidential debate last night. The Flash voting site has handy sliders that let viewers rate each candidate's performance with a rating of -1, 0, or +1. At 44%, Mike Gravel has the highest number of negative (-1) votes, perhaps as a result of his particularly stormy attack on the war in Iraq ("A law making it a felony to stay there" would be the best way to bring the troops home). Chris Dodd had the somewhat dubious honor of having the most neutral (0) votes, with 51%, and Barack Obama had the highest positive (+1) rating, with 44%. We don't know the total number of people who voted (it's not clear they promoted it at all during the debate), though to submit a response voters must rate every candidate.
• Jeff Jarvis was completely frustrated with the way MSNBC handled last night's debate. The debate should be online, Jarvis wrote, so we can actually catch and consider what the candidates were saying, and so we can "download and remix the questions and answers so we can compare and contrast them." While there's a link to the debate on the MSNBC site, there's no video of it anywhere. Jarvis concludes that "It’s painfully clear that NBC doesn’t understand the internet and its role in i[t]."
• Ron Paul continues to mystify. Despite owning and operating what is easily the worst web site among all Democratic and Republican candidates for president, Paul continues to have a ton of support on MySpace (though he's no longer the Republican leader there; that title belongs to John McCain), supporters continue to upload videos of him to YouTube, he's regularly dugg on Digg, and he now has an unofficial HQ in Second Life. Now, he's granted video blogger James Kotecki an actual interview in Kotecki's dorm room. How's that for intimacy?

The Candidates on the Web

• Last night, while watching the first Democratic debate, readers of Blue Hampshire and the Booman Tribune witnessed Chris Dodd's war room in action, and could even ask Dodd's team for longer responses to questions than the TV debate format allowed. It was done using Ustream.tv, a new service that lets you embed live, streaming video on your web site in the same way you'd embed a YouTube video. So Blue Hampshire and the Booman Tribune were able to embed a live feed of Dodd's war room onto their sites, and in the comment threads below the video readers could comment on the debate, and even have a conversation with Dodd's team. So far Dodd is the only candidate to take advantage of this technology, but we think most of the other candidates will follow suit; as the TV debates grow stuffier and more predictable, and as we come to expect more interactivity and dialogue with the candidates, streaming behind-the-scenes action during official events could become irresistible.

In Case You Missed It...

Fred Stutzman writes that although Barack Obama is Twittering, he isn't writing his own tweets.

David All wonders if Yahoo!'s online debate will be fair and balanced.

Justin Oberman thinks that the Late Night players have "invented one of the most cleverest text messaging ideas to date."