The First Ever U.S Presidential Debate with a Fourth Screen.
Not being American, it is a bit of an oddity to most Americans and Canadians when I tell them about my ready interest to watch the next round of debates for a U.S. election year.
Go figure.
Growing up, regardless of party line, I was influenced by ABC News and the Presidential debates. As a young lad, I have vague memories of “Watergate” (yup), the winding down of the Vietnam War, and political news coverage. Thank Dad for this (may he rest in peace) as it grounded me on foreign policy and macro policy issues that still keep me engaged until today.
Sadly, I am no longer “moved” by the political establishment in Canada or the U.S. I am still mesmerized by John F. Kennedy and his passionate speaking, his vision, his love of the space program, his “youthful” approach to political detente and perhaps diplomacy and his entertaining interactions with media.
For the first time ever, I will be watching the debates on a fourth screen. The screen is my iPad. If I could airplay YouTube from the iMac for the live stream, I would. Plus, still waiting for my RIM Playbook 32GB pre-order to be delivered or I could be watching off that screen.
This is the first time ever that the only dependency I will have is on the broadband connection coming into my room to feed this debate. No more cable, no more digital or analog antennas, no more satellite and no more “network or cable” news coverage in the sense of the old school paradigm of television viewing.
Goodbye Nielsen family! Putting this into context, so many people watched the London 2012 Olympics via internet streams that I would claim that 2012 is the pivotal moment in our history where media consumption has fully crossed the divide leaving behind the old industrial world behind as the new fully technological world built off the Internet takes hold with the masses. The era of “i” has arrived Steve Jobs.
Regarding the US elections: May the best debater win! I am not revealing my card in this because, to be quite honest, I think both parties are plagued by an entrenched group of dinosaurs that have frozen the DC Beltway and essentially created a dark age.
This dark age is known as kleptocracy!
That’s my American two cents! :-) Since Canada will not be producing anymore soon.
- LIVE at 8:30 p.m.: U.S. Presidential Debate (livenews.thestar.com)
- Salon liveblogs the presidential debate (salon.com)
- YouTube teams up with ABC News for first livestream of U.S. Presidential debates (ziggytek.com)
