President Barack Obama plans to answer questions on that were submitted to the White House through Google Moderator.
On Monday, Obama posted a message on YouTube, which has received more than 10,000 hits to date, telling Americans that "we're going to take advantage of the Internet to bring all of you to the White House to talk about the economy."
The White House is using Google Moderator, an application that allows users to pose questions
and vote on ones that they like. There are 11 categories on the site including small business, veterans and health-care reform. Nearly 12,000 people had submitted questions and cast more than 420,000 votes by Wednesday.
"We're going to compile those questions and votes and then on Thursday I'll be giving you some answers myself," Obama said in his YouTube address. The administration will have a lot of work, though, as nearly 14,000 questions have been submitted so far.
Under the home ownership category the question with the most votes is: "What benefits from the stimulus plan are there to those of us who are paying our mortgages, but living paycheck to paycheck?"
A younger user from Washington, D.C., posed a question in the retirement security forum, "I'm 19 years old and just beginning to see my earnings deducted for Social Security. Though retirement is a long while away, how can you guarantee that this program remains solvent?"
Calling the project an "experiment" Obama said that "it's also an exciting opportunity for me to look at a computer and get a snapshot of what Americans across the country care about."
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6 comments:
Lol... please note that the interface for questions at http://www.whitehouse.gov/openforquestions/ resembles Gmail very much. There is the same technology behind these two. Experienced users will surely notice that.
Hey Warshock,
It seems like a nice initiative!
No Portuguese politician ever asks us how we feel about things...so I wish President Obama were our Premier...
Cheers
Well Obama does know how to use the internet to it's advantage. While I think it is a good idea, I pity the administrator responsible to "answer" all these questions. I guess they will have to filter it out in some form.
Meanwhile, while Obama is taking snapshots of what Americans care about, Google is further consolidating it's power. This is starting to get very scary...
@Sean...yes, Sean, there are subtle(?) similarities. Google Moderator is a Google application. Maybe it's Google's way of reminding the user's that 'hey, our technology made all this possible'...lol.
@Max...you're right, if it's a step towards consultation down to the grassroots level done through the web, that's great. But the 'action' after the 'consultation' is what counts.
In my experience in our country, it's the Non Government Organizations (NGO's) volunteers who usually facilitates such consultations vis a vis crucial issues, but farced by our politicos.
@ diTesco...how about an administrator and some bots...lol. seriously, i believe the president employed some very trusted and capable staff to do that.
I noticed that, friend, everywhere you turn around in the web, there's a shade of Mr G. wooh...Big Brother looms..lol.
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