Commentary

Twitter, CBS Join Forces For Democratic Debate

In case you forgot, there’s a presidential election coming up in 2016, which means the excruciating kabuki drama that is U.S. politics is already relentlessly thrusting itself into your consciousness by every channel available, whether you like it or not. On the social media front, Twitter has announced a partnership with CBS News to provide data on audience reactions and allow viewers to ask questions in real-time during the upcoming Democratic debate scheduled for November 14.

Twitter commentary and analysis will appear as part of CBS News’ coverage of the debate. The microblogging site is encouraging users to identify their tweets with the hashtag #DemDebate, allowing them to pose questions and interact with each other and CBS reporters during the debate.

CBS News president David Rhodes stated: “Our people have worked with Twitter’s unique curator tools to measure changing responses to what viewers will see on the screen. This Twitter integration will inform our coverage and integrate seamlessly with CBSN, our always-on digital network.”

The Twitter-CBS partnership is another step in Twitter’s larger effort to dominate reporting and discussion of live events. The push includes the introduction of “Moments,” which is intended to make Twitter more accessible to casual users by compiling tweets about high profile, ongoing events, thus removing a lot of the confusing clutter that has hindered more widespread adoption. There are also “evergreen” Moments devoted to topics like hobbies, science, and so on.

Last week Twitter opened up its Moments feature to publishers, allowing them to sort, curate, and arrange tweets to create their own Twitter-based content around news events and subjects. Online publishers using two Twitter tools, Curator and Publisher, will be able to discover relevant tweets about current events and trending topics and embed them in their own content.

Also last week, Twitter announced that it is introducing a new polling feature, which will allow marketers, professional posters, and ordinary Twitter users to survey their followers on any subject.

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