Current TV gets even more current

CNN wrote a piece on Al Gore's Current TV redesign. Really -- user-generated content? That won't last... ;-)

If you're not current on Current TV, it's almost like YouTube with a staff that organizes and helps the members. It's YouTube for adults. It's better. And can I just say -- Al gets this stuff. Yet another reason he'd be incredible in the White House: He understands how this country communicates. He understands Web 2.0. He understands the younger generation and how they/we can help make the country and the world a better place. It all starts with communication.

How the world would be different

If you pay for an online subscription to the New York Times, you're in luck. As an abstract to the article:

Bob Herbert Op-Ed column on his interview with Al Gore, whom he calls perhaps most qualified person in country to be president; speculates on what might have been if Gore, who got most votes in 2000, actually became president; says his new book The Assault on Reason takes blowtorch to Bush administration; says Gore, asked why he is not running for president in 2008, says he lacks tolerance for triviality and artifice necessary in politics today; says he voices contempt for notion that important and complex matters can be seriously addressed in sound-bite sentences or 30-second television ads, which is how presidential campaigns are now conducted.

We know he's right, of course... we just hope he's not right about this forever, though. We're the ones who have to dictate, in this new media world, how we get the information we want. Why do we abide by the junk food approach to politics? Why do we refuse the meat and potatoes? Is it just too much work for us, as citizens? How sad... And how about we start to change that?!

This election will be different from the last one, and certainly worlds different from the election that Gore won in 2000. Social media, podcasts, blogs, YouTube, iTunes, self-publishing -- they've all taken a great tack in the political sphere. Isn't it about time the Internet-enabled citizens of this country start to take back what's ours? The message is no longer for the marketers of the world to dictate -- it's ours to control now.

Read The New Influencers if you want to be inducted into the social media realm. The book is aimed at business marketers, but why can't we apply those lessons to political "marketers" or to mainstream media? Why do the mainstream media outlets need to tell us what we need to learn about the candidates? Why are 30-second media bytes necessary anymore?

Full disclosure: The author of The New Influencers, Paul Gillin, is my fiance. It wouldn't take a lot of work to figure that out, but I thought I'd make it easier on you. :-)