Tonight my friends at Current invited me to check out the behind-the-scenes action at their first ever Hack The Debate event where they joined forces with Twitter to provide real-time Twitter updates during Current’s broadcast of the presidential debates.
While at the Current offices we were greeted by special guest Al Gore, who co-founded Current along with Joel Hyatt.
I shot video of Al’s welcome speech where the subject of Twitter came up and he promised that by tomorrow he would be using Twitter. He mentioned that he was normally an early adopter, but had not yet joined Twitter.
Once the debate was under way, I walked over to the Twitter Headquarters, where they were in full swing, making sure that Twitter stayed up and running throughout the night. Based on the numbers they shared with us after the debates, they did an amazing job and are more than ready for election night.
photo gallery: Current & Twitter Hack The Debate
More Coverage:
- GigaOM
UPDATE: Al Gore is finally on Twitter, you can follow him @algore.
photos by Scott Beale
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Looks like a really fun time. Great photos.
Needless to say, 2008 Debate is one of the most important things this year, so it is quite normal to drive Twitter to promote for it.
glad you were there! how was al gore?
What better way to watch a debate than the way you guys organized it. Yes, twitter is the way to communicate to everyone. I was watching the debate and commenting on twitter too.
I wish I was there!
Agreed! Wish I was there too!
Al's a great guy and he really knows how to work the room.
So thats what was going on downstairs…
That's the Current lobby where they had a bunch of people on iMacs moderating the Twitter posts that were going live on the broadcast of the debate.
Is anybody going to wake up from this 2008 Electoral Stockholm Syndrome??!!
Current TV covering the 2008 elections looks about as exciting as passing the jello at a retirement home for polyestered weathermen and supermarket subscription sellers.
The Republicrats are about to line themselves up for another round of Good Ol' Boy Feeding Frenzies (at the empire endgame's 2 minute warning) with another TRILLION pumped directly from all 2morrw's blood, sweat and tears…
And the twitterfroth is festering little useless 1 and 2 liners every 5 minutes about Palin's Weekly World News-scale odorama and Obama's sticky superhero latex democracy underpants.
“Hack The Debate” ??! This is more like a hook, line and sinker tutorial on how to lick the NeoCons' toilet bowl after they've devoured and shat out every feeble brain in The Homeland.
Change aint comin anytime soon from lathering yourselves in the internet's version of Polysorbate 80 at Al Gore's marshmellow roast.
Scott, this is awesome