
Obama to Hold Google+ ‘Hangout’ After State of the Union - mcknz
http://techland.time.com/2012/01/23/obama-to-hold-google-hangout-after-state-of-the-union-address/?iid=tl-main-feature
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click170
Not that I'll get my way, but I think we should bring back the days when they
didn't pre-screen interview questions.

The Nixon/Frost interview is still my favorite of all, I found it more telling
about the President than any interview with any political candidate since
then.

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magicalist
Those days didn't really ever exist, though. Nixon/Frost was a pretty much
unique event.

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yahelc
And even then, Frost/Nixon took place 2.5 years _after_ Nixon had already
resigned the Presidency.

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electromagnetic
That's when Nixon only had the Secret Service making sure he didn't get shot,
he didn't have officials making sure questions weren't asked that could breach
national security, etc.

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ChrisNorstrom
Sorry but as soon as I see "prescreened" I think "censorship" and "avoiding
criticism". What a bore that will be. That's my problem with politics, with
republicans and democrats, everything is so sugar coated. They always have
answers to easy questions. I want to see how someone responds when asked
difficult questions. That's when you find out who they really are.

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wmobit
I also think it mostly means the president won't see anybody's penis.

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cheald
Maybe this is just an indicator of my unfitness to ever be POTUS, but I think
that after the stress of having to deliver a State of the Union address with
an economy like ours in an election year, seeing some random dude's flop-o-
matic 9000 pop up on screen would the sort of utterly absurd thing I'd
appreciate.

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ghurlman
I wonder what the going rate is to buy the President's time.

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edge17
how's it any different than taking questions via twitter, doing a community
roundtable at linkedin, or meeting with employees et al. at facebook?

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rfurmani
The 10 user limit, and equality of the speakers, for example.

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mkr-hn
Hangouts are embedded in G+ posts. People can comment as long as they don't
turn comments off.

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ShabbyDoo
So, for what demographics does this publicity stunt improve the perceived
legitimacy of Google+? I can't think of any negatives.

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jordan0day
I presume Google+ is going after this key demo: your mom.

Google+ has already caught on in the techy/engineery crowd (still not to the
extent of Facebook, of course, but Google can probably afford to let this grow
slowly), but while now Twitter and Facebook are household terms, "Google Plus"
probably is still unknown to many regular folks. These kinds of publicity
stunts are entirely aimed at changing that.

I think it's a smart move, and honestly, it's nice to see someone promote
their service by holding chats with the POTUS rather than a Kardashian or
something.

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27182818284
After meaning almost a week later, not later Tuesday evening.

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sachinag
Of course the questions are going to be pre-screened. It'll be a
representative sample of the issues that will generally determine the election
for the undecided and independent voter. If you're a big NORML supporter and
want him to talk about pot, make it a national issue. If your issue won't
swing an election, then he won't talk about it.

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aamar
Also note the infographic/slide-enhanced version of the SotU which will stream
live, Tue, Jan 24th, 9pm EST: <http://www.whitehouse.gov/state-of-the-
union-2012>

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colinm
Next month, ChatRoulette!

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badclient
Quite shameful to see Google so aggressively shove a subpar product and
experience.

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felipemnoa
I don't really have any experience with hangout so could you please provide
comments as to why it is a subpar product? So far I've heard positive comments
about it.

