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Microsoft Gets Political With 'Town Hall' Software

by Amar Toor on April 20, 2010 at 03:20 PM

Traditionally, town hall meetings were events in which everyday, normal citizens could informally gather and share opinions or concerns. In the past few years, the town hall ethos has been revived and adapted to a more contemporary political context, much to the electoral benefit of some politicians and much to the horror of others. Now, Microsoft has decided to bring the town hall to the digital sphere with its newest politically oriented platform.

Yesterday, the company introduced Town Hall, a crowd-sourcing system that aims at enhancing "rich engagement" between users and politicians. Microsoft describes Town Hall as "software that allows you to easily create a destination for folks to voice opinions, identify problems, offer solutions and come together around common interests and concerns." Unveiled at yesterday's Politics Online Conference, Town Hall clearly takes its cue from the similar kind of social media grassroots politics that President Obama successfully embraced during his 2008 campaign; users can post and answer questions, vote on issues, and participate in debate or conversation.

So far, Town Hall is only available on PC, though ReadWriteWeb reports that Microsoft plans on rolling out versions for the iPhone, iPad, Google Android and Windows Phone 7 platforms in the months to come. If you're a PC owner and you want to get in on the Town Hall conversation, you can grab the software here at no cost. Otherwise, Microsoft has uploaded some screenshots that you can browse on Flickr.

Objectively, it makes sense for Microsoft to take advantage of the current populist swell by introducing a software specifically designed for dialogue. We're not entirely convinced, however, that consumers will choose to download Town Hall when they could just as easily participate in the same kinds of conversations on virtually any social media site. (Aren't social networking sites de facto town halls, anyway?) In theory, it falls directly in line with an encouraging trend of direct voter engagement. In practice, though, it's likely that most users have already carved out their own communities on the Internet, from which it may be difficult for Microsoft to draw them away. It's a noble idea, but Town Hall may be a bit late to the political party. [From: ReadWriteWeb]

Tags: crowdsourcing, Microsoft, MicrosoftAzure, politics, socialnetworking, top, TownHall, TownHallMeeting, web

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