The mush-up

Sorry, Arianna, but your much vaunted presidential mash-up debate has been made into a pathetic insult to the voters thanks to Yahoo's decision -- as reported by Wired.com -- not to allow us to remix the raw video. I urge you and Slate to force Yahoo to make good on your promise to turn this into a real mash-up.

All we end up with here is an opportunity to passively watch Charlie Rose and Bill Maher ask the candidates questions on the usual topics. Nevermind that the topics were selected by an online poll; they are the usual topics and it's not as if we have a shortage of opportunities to hear the candidates give the usual answers to them.

We, the people, should be the ones asking the questions. We should be the ones selecting the questions. We should be the ones editing the questions. It's our election. It should be our debate -- especially this one.

So where's the interactivity here? Where's the control? Well, we viewer/voters get to pick which videos to watch in which order. Pinch me -- the freedom! It's like a bad children's museum: 'Here, kids, push this button. You can't do any harm.' Yahoo makes it difficult for us even to embed the videos on our blogs; we have to go find the video on its video service to get the necessary code. According to Wired.com, Yahoo didn't even put an open license on the content freeing us to remix on our own; even old networks, CNN and NBC among them, have done that, to their credit.

So no mashing here. Just more mush from the wimps.

I'm frankly surprised that you and Slate didn't pull out of the event when Yahoo robbed it of its one semblance of internet populism and innovation -- of the mashing-up itself. Sorry to say, I'm not surprised at this from Yahoo. There's a reason I call them the last old-media company.

But I do wish that you would force them to enable the mash-up. For you see, it's not just about us watching. It's about us producing and broadcasting. We should be able to make our mash-ups and show them to the world. Indeed, why not go one step farther and take all the video from all the debates -- since they are open to our unrestricted reuse -- and put them together so we can produce and publish the ultimate mashups from the election so far? And then we can also see what questions have note been asked and answered. Then we can ask them the next time.

The much vaunted Yahoo/Huffington Post/Slate presidential debate "mash-up" is a pathetic insult to the voters that is years behind in internet culture.

According to Wired.com's Sarah Lai Stirland, it was Yahoo who wussied out and decided not to put up the footage up on its mash-up video site for voters and viewers to remix.

No mashing here. Just more mush from the wimps.

So we end up with watching Charlie Rose and Bill Maher asking the candidates questions on the usual topics -- do we have a shortage of this on TV debates? Where's the interactivity? Well, we get to pick which videos to watch. Oooh, the freedom. It's like a bad children's museum: 'Here, children, push this button. You won't do any harm.'

We should be the ones asking the questions. We should be the ones selecting the questions. We should be the ones editing the questions.

Instead, they give us buttons to push. What an insult.

I am shocked that Huffington Post and Slate did not pull out of this venture when Yahoo ruined it. They should have. It's yet more proof how behind Yahoo has left itself. The last old-media company, that's what I call them. But they're even older in mind and spirit than NBC, CNN, and ABC, which at least opened up their debate footage for us to reuse. Yahoo doesn't put such an open license on this content. Yahoo doesn't even make it easy for us to embed the videos. You can't do it on their alleged "mash-up" page, only if you find the video on their video site, which isn't easy with their bad search. Here's one:

Huffington Post, Slate, and the candidates should insist that Yahoo make good on its word and make this video available for us to remix. It will still be pathetic -- since we did not get the chance to ask and select the questions -- but it would be just a little less pathetic.

LATER: I just posted this to Huffingtonpost, ending with this suggestion:

But I do wish that you would force them to enable the mash-up. For you see, it's not just about us watching. It's about us producing and broadcasting. We should be able to make our mash-ups and show them to the world. Indeed, why not go one step farther and take all the video from all the debates -- since they are open to our unrestricted reuse -- and put them together so we can produce and publish the ultimate mashups from the election so far? And then we can also see what questions have note been asked and answered. Then we can ask them the next time.

UPDATE: I just got email from Arianna Huffington saying that users will be able to take their playlists to Yahoo's Jumpcut and then embed the results in their blogs. This is supposed to happen this afternoon. More later.

UPDATE: Here is the mashup page.

Follow Jeff Jarvis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jeffjarvis

Comments

[emncaity]

Oh, come on...it was ON here, wasn't it?

[Singha]

Wow! After a few hours this critique got pushed off the front page. I wonder......

[Stranahan]

Yeah - this was a real disappointment. Thanks for letting Jeff Jarvis use HuffPo to criticize HuffPo, though - the loyal opposition.

There's still time to do it the right way. Fix this and then get another one going right away with real users asking real questions - and then use people like Maher or Rose to make sure they ANSWER the question that was actually asked.

Do over!

[Singha]

Here's some questions I want them to answer.

What's wrong with not funding the occupation?
It was done by the repubs during Clinton.
What about a "Jimmy Stewart" filibuster? Anyone?

Since bush is getting his way on everything, is there any way to stop him from his goal of bombing Iran?

[youngbodhisattva]

I thought it was great at first -- mainly because Bill Maher and Charlie Rose are great -- but it definately wasn't what it was billed to be. Bill Maher asked some good questions, but the problem is he asked a different one to each candidate and he didn't get to ask enough. Yahoo's site also encouraged me to vote for who I thought was the best, but the outcomes were already determined before I could vote. It showed Hillary Clinton leading between 30-40%. Where can I vote to change this?!?