Voting - Another Way to Create Interactivity

Living in a "swing state," 5 days before a national election, you may have reached your quota of talk about voting. But you can relax because this post is not about politics. Instead, it's about building interactivity and creating a sense of involvement. One way to engage readers and viewers is to invite them to vote...and then tell them the results. Newspapers, local newscasts, and reality TV shows have all employed voting as a means to find out what readers/viewers are thinking, and at the same time, drawing them into the program and making them feel engaged. According to Mitch Rose, PointRoll's vice president of marketing, "the basic rationale for polling is that humans have an innate drive to compare themselves to others." Mass media-enabled voting can be a simple way to create interaction between the content creator and consumer.

Banner ads that invite voting are another attempt to attract viewers' interest. PointRoll Polling, according to their web site http://www.pointroll.com/products/polling.asp, "let's the web user share their opinions, while the advertiser can capture valuable information about their brand, product and position."

Consider also the following application of "live" voting as reported by MediaPost...

New Yorkers have been treated to an interactive billboard in Times Square serving as a public forum for people to debate, "What is beautiful?" Passersby can cast their vote via cell phone and a running tally appears in real-time on the billboard. So what does the billboard look like? It's an image of Irene Sinclair, a 96-year-old woman who's wrinkled face now graces a sixty-nine feet high and forty-four feet wide billboard above the Marriott Marquis. Viewers decide if she's "Wrinkled?" or "Wonderful?" as the ad questions: "Will society ever accept old can be beautiful?" The billboard is part of Unilever brand Dove's global campaign for real beauty, which challenges the stereotypical view of beauty.

Can you recall a website or TV program that convinced you to submit your vote? If so, tell us about it. If not, why do you suppose that you're not interested in expressing your opinion in this way?

NOTE: In related news...Wired News just reported on a Pew Internet study that indicates that the American public wants to be able to voice their opinion by using an online ratings system. Read more at http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,65501,00.html