2008 Presidential Debates Turn to the Net

Presidential debates are nothing out of the ordinary. Since early on in our nation's history, political opponents have squared off in these battle royales to see who can speak better and politically pee farther. 2004 of course saw the first use of blogging technology. And we've all taken it in, at least most of us, and we all wait patiently but excitedly for the next great debates in four years.

While many of us will stay glued to our TVs this campaign season to see which candidate will reign supreme at the podium and hopefully deliver us from the last eight years, I predict that twice as many will be glued to their computer screens sometime after Labor Day to watch the first ever online presidential debates.

As Monday's post by Harry McCracken points out, one Democratic and one Republican candidate will be chosen to participate, and viewers will have the ability to upload video questions for the candidates. At the helm of all this will be Charlie Rose, and DNC chairman Howard Dean will provide the opening remarks [Insert that primal scream of his here].

As far as content format goes, that remains yet to be determined....eh, announced. I imagine the organizers would use some sort of high-bandwidth streaming video like CNN Pipeline uses.

For anyone who works and/or tinkers in social networking or new media, this is a must-attend.