Ottawa

You ARE the dial group. You BECOME the dial group. Luntz hands, everybody! Luntz hands!

For tonight’s English-language debate, our friends over at buzzz.tv (“Friends” defined as “guys I’ve never met who had a cool idea”) will be welcoming internauts from all over the country who want to share their live, as-it-happens reaction to what the leaders say. This link will go live at 8 p.m. You’ll then be directed to a simple interface (lovely on an iPhone, I’m told, but I’m a berry man; at any rate, it works on desktops and laptops too) that will allow you to respond, en direct, to what you see and hear. Inkless readers have already had a chance to admire the results from last night’s debate, collated and posted almost instantly.

Details on this project (in French) here. These guys have slammed their project together in only a week; bugs and beta-testing have been inevitable but it’s a very interesting initiative. I haven’t a clue how you’ll follow our liveblog and dial-group the debate while it’s happening, but I don’t doubt you’ll manage.

FUN INSTA-UPDATES: One smart thing the buzzz.tv people are doing is posting all their data and encouraging anybody who wants to analyze it and graphic-ize it as they like. Here’s the pie chart of last night’s viewers by self-identified political allegiance; walking in, a substantial plurality of them expected to support the Bloc. Here’s a time series map of last night’s participants. Overwhelmingly Quebecers and New Brunswickers, of course; I hope we’ll be able to get lots of participation from outside Quebec tonight.

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