The goal of Rock the Vote, MTV’s non-partisan partner, is to get 20 million 18-to-24-year-olds to the polls this US presidential election year, and it figures technology can only help. First it reached people via mobile phones (see RTV Mobile and its Mobile Photo Blog, which covered the Democratic National Convention last month). Now it’s IM. According to Wired News, RTV is using Rock the Vote-branded IM software that will allow users of the largest IM services (AIM, Yahoo, MSN) to communicate with each other. It’s mobilizing “thousands of ‘street team’ volunteers” who will use “search tools built into the IM client to identify and add to their buddy lists young voters they’ve met at … Rock the Vote events – concerts, college appearances, meet-ups and the like – who have also downloaded the client. Once that’s done, the street team will engage those buddies in regular political discussions and encourage them to reach out to their own friends to talk politics as well.” As an incentive, as Election Day approaches, RTV’s celebrity partners will join in the IM discussions.
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