YouTube-Google Forum Is Challenge to Debate Commission, Politics Magazine.

"Will [the commission] embrace it or will they shun it?" wonders Republican web consultant David All, one of a group of Internet consultants who pressured Republican hopefuls to take part in this year's CNN-YouTube debate. At the very least, All says, the forum could force the commission into the 21st century, something critics say it has resisted for far too long.

The Commission's Executive Director Janet Brown told Politics magazine that the commission is debating format changes that will introduce some new interactive elements to this year's official debates. While Brown wouldn't comment on the proposed YouTube-Google forum, she did say the changes to the commission's format are forthcoming and will strike a balance between involving more citizens in the process and maintaining the appropriate tone for a presidential debate.

"It's a matter of figuring out which [interactive] elements are helpful to viewers and actually add something to the discussion and which elements are just distracting," Brown says. "We're not Entertainment Tonight," she adds.

Politico, Yahoo! to host Bush interview, Politico.

President George W. Bush tomorrow will sit down for his first ever on camera interview exclusively for an online audience. Days after first daughter Jenna walked down the aisle, POLITICO's Mike Allen will go behind the scenes of the White House to capture the president's thinking in a historic interview for Politico and Yahoo.com.

Carly Fiorina: McCain's Environmental Policy Is Distinct From Bush's, Wired.

"This is an area ... where John McCain differs pretty substantially from the (Bush) administration," said McCain's chief surrogate and economic adviser Carly Fiorina on Sunday political talk show "This Week with George Stephanopoulos. "I think what John McCain has always said, whether it's the cap and trade legislation that he has supported and sponsored with Joe Lieberman, or this current bill, what he has always said is that the United States must take a leadership role in addressing climate change and global warming."

"We must apply some of the disciplines of the private marketplace to spur innovation in this area as well as to incent companies to do better," she added.

The move marks a shift toward a general election messaging strategy as McCain speaks on a subject that's important to suburban swing voters -- although polls consistently show that the environment ranks near the bottom of voters' list of concerns generally, trailing their worries about the economy, the war in Iraq, terrorism, healthcare, education and illegal immigration.

Colleges Putting Their Own Spin on YouTube, Washington Post.

"Marketing in higher education is really at a crossroads," said Nora Ganim Barnes, director of the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. "Those that don't engage and manage social media are going to be left behind."

Universities are moving onto social media including Facebook, iTunesU and YouTube "because they know that's where students are nowadays," said David Hawkins of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. "To not have a presence in those areas means risking being left behind in the student conversation of this generation."

But like a parent trying to seem cool, sometimes the efforts are painful to watch. "The last thing someone on YouTube wants to see is a provost explaining the academic offerings at an institution," Hawkins said.

Google Wants To Be Your Universal Profile Too; Announces Friend Connect, Mashable.

Friend Connect is a tool which enables any website owner to add some code to their site and get a number of social features. You know, all that stuff you usually can’t be bothered to install plugins for: user registration, invites, members gallery, reviews, message posting, and - most importantly - third party OpenSocial apps.

In practice, this means that anyone will be able to log in, for example, with their OpenID on some blog, and converse with their Gtalk, Facbeook, or Plaxo friends. The web as a platform, it’s finally happening, folks.