The Telegraph Media Group has teamed up with Salesforce.com to provide a crowdsourcing website aimed at stimulating public discussion and debate in the run up to the UK General Election.
Debate2010.co.uk will enable members of the public to debate topics, post ideas as well as comment and vote on issues in areas such as healthcare, education, the economy, foreign affairs and crime. The site will remain live until polling day, which is widely expected to take place on 6 May.
Marcus Warren, editor of Telegraph.co.uk, said: "Social media will be a central theme of the 2010 election. There will be no better tool to map public opinion in the weeks ahead."
He added that the voting system would highlight key political issues and provide a clear overview of public opinion. Matters that were high on the agenda would also be compiled into a UK Citizens Briefing Book for MPs in a bid to outline key priorities.
David Bradshaw, research manager at analyst house IDC, said: "This is an excellent example of how cloud-based technology can reshape the debate and help to engage public opinion. It could also re-shape the nature of political debate moving forward."
Capturing social media-based conversations to determine public opinion proved a "powerful phenomenon" during the US election, he added.
Debate 2010 is based on Salesforce’s Ideas cloud-based crowd-sourcing application and was built and launched in less than four weeks. The same technology was used by US President Obama’s Transition team in the US following his election to the White House as a forum for political discussion.
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