C-SPAN ‘Debate Hub’ Is the Political Social Media Web 2.0 Uber Geek’s Wet Dream

Even if politics and Presidential debates bore you to the point where you need to nap like a 72-year-old, credit is still due to C-SPAN for making the whole process slightly more interesting with its ambitious Debate Hub. The social media-packed, live-blogging saturated, video clip bonanza, pulls content from a variety of sources—including YouTube, ADD microblogging tool Twitter, and C-SPAN’s spin-free video coverage—and crams it all into a clean little web page. At the conclusion of each debate, C-SPAN guarantees to have all video clips linked to the official transcript, as well as a tag cloud detailing each debate’s central themes. Dare I say it, this could be the future of covering live events. It’s liveblogging, on steroids!

It’s too late to see the site doing its thing live (the first debate was last Friday), but there are three more debates planned, so you’ll still get to see C-SPAN pull and archive video on the fly.

In an interview with ars technica, social media magnate Clay Shirky was enthused by C-SPAN’s effort.

“This transforms liveblogging from a marginal thing that a few committed high-speed typists do to something anyone can do,” said Shirky. “The platform allows me to do what I do when I blog asynchronously, basing a post directly on a link to a permanent reference point.” This, he says, overcomes the “perennial liveblogger dilemma.”

“Do I comment or watch and try to form a considered reaction?” he asked.

Truly, it could mean more power to the people, and an end to the talking heads of cable network news. I think that’s an idea, red or blue, that we can all get behind. [C-SPAN via ars technica]