The Great Debate

You might have noticed a new application on your Facebook homepage announcing the upcoming ABC News-Facebook Presidential Debates. Erick Schonfeld at the TechCrunch blog has some interesting analysis of the debate format, which apparently will not be similar to the CNN-YouTube Debates. "The exact tie-in details to the televised debate are in development," Schonfeld quotes an unnamed Facebook spokesperson as saying. "But this will not be a case where there will be direct questions from users like you've seen in other debates."

So what's the point?

Well, from a marketing standpoint it's sheer genius. After all, ABC will gather real-time data on how many people are watching the live debates from the Facebook demographic--which just happens to be the prized mid-20's, highly educated, young professional. Not a bad day's work, really. At a time when many young people are abandoning the reruns on TV for streaming content online, I'm sure that ABC was able to sell some nice ads for that little Facebook partnership.

But that still doesn't answer the question, what's the point?

I'm torn. In spite of the highly public nature of adding and dropping apps on Facebook, I am planning to add the "New Hampshire Debates" application in the name of social science. In my view, the real question is whether television executives actually have the stomach to utilize the internet for what it's worth. My hunch is that they're too worried about cannibalizing their traditional revenue streams to view the web as anything more than a means to an end. In the meantime, the question of when and how truly convergent content will reach our TV screens remains the great debate.

UPDATE: I suffered through a portion of the Republican debate, and there was no tie-in with Facebook other than branding. Same is true for the ABC News page on Facebook. There's no obvious reason why the partnership really matters to anyone other than the corporations.