Asking the president a question

On in off chance, I heard about the ability to submit and/or vote on questions to be answered by the President during his Internet Video Chat. Further still, questions submitted by video were encouraged. The most popular questions would be addressed during a live video chat by the President. Intrigued by this opportunity to actually participate in controlling which questions were asked, I surfed over to www.whitehouse.gov and poked around.

In the spirit of the nothing-is-really-for-free Web, I needed to register (e.g. provide an e-mail address) in order to submit and/or vote on a question. I expected nothing less, and recognized that a byproduct of the open forum format would be the ability to acquire valuable contact information that could potentially be used in the future. (Reference here.) As has been reported, in the end over 100,000 questions were asked, 3.6 million votes came in, and over 64,000 people logged on to watch the answers. (Unfortunately, I was unable to view the actual live video.)

Clearly, the entire event could be viewed as a groundswell, given the number of votes cast during the short timeframe. However, an excellent example of a potential sub-groundswell was also evident given that one of the most popular questions pertained to the legalization of marijuana, which, "...the press secretary, suggested that advocates for legalizing marijuana had mounted a drive to rack up votes for the question ". (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/us/politics/27obama.html?ref=us) In keeping the legitimacy of the event, the President did provide an answer.

For me, the ability to directly influence which questions the President would address during a live talk exemplifies the power that Web 2.0 technologies can provide for ordinary people to connect with the most elite. I never considered that Web 2.0 technologies could play such an influencing and empowering role within the presidential environment. (It should not surprise me either, that I found out the President also has a Twitter account too.) I am curious about the age demographics of the people who submitted and/or voted on questions. It would be interesting to learn which parts of the population are taking advantage of these new communication vectors.
Based on what I perceive to be a successful event, I look forward to future Web 2.0 based events within the presidential arena.