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Press Releases | In the News | Media Contact Info Press Release SpeakOut.com & UMass Boston Students Set to "Rate the Debates" BOSTON, Mass. -- September 28, 2000, Speakout.com and the University of Massachusetts Boston have teamed up to offer "Rate the Debate" Technology that will allow up to 5,000 students nationwide to offer simultaneous moment-by-moment feedback on the October 11 encounter between the Republican and Democratic candidates. SpeakOut.com's patent-pending NterceptTM technology, which was used to analyze the hits and misses of the major speeches at the Republican and Democratic conventions in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, will be deployed for each of the debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. These events will mark the first time that Americans will be invited to rate presidential debate performances on a second-by-second basis via the Internet. The partnership with UMass Boston is the latest of several agreements that include Wake Forest University and Youth Vote 2000 to contribute to the largest-ever focus group for a live event. SpeakOut.com (www.speakout.com) and UMass Boston (http://www.umb.edu/debate) will invite its students to join other college students nationwide in logging on to register their real-time responses to the candidates as they go head-to-head to debate the tough issues of Campaign 2000. Each participant will be presented with an Internet-based "dial meter" on their computer that allows them to score every second of the debate on a 0-100 scale indicating levels of disapproval and approval. The aggregated data from the respondents, broken down by party and other demographic factors, will be processed immediately at SpeakOut.com and made available to the public, even before the debate concludes. The University of Massachusetts Boston, the first public university ever to host a Presidential Debate, views the partnership with SpeakOut.com as in keeping with its mission of accessible education and service. "We approached UMass Boston because of its reputation for technological innovation and its strong sense of community involvement," said Ron Howard, Chairman and CEO of SpeakOut.com. "At the upcoming debates, we look forward to working with UMass Boston to provide an instantaneous understanding of the views and opinions of thousands of individuals, who represent important segments of the American public." The SpeakOut.com/UMass Boston "Rate the Debate" registration and response room, which can be accessed at www.speakout.com/debates/youthvote2000 or www.umb.edu/debate/students.html, will allow users to pre-register to participate and will provide a wide variety of data and statistics from the debate immediately after its conclusion. About SpeakOut.com Based in Washington, DC, SpeakOut.com is America's leading non-partisan Internet activism portal and online opinion research company. Launched in February 2000, SpeakOut.com seeks to enhance the democratic process by enabling citizens to have a voice in the decisions that affect their lives. Recently named by Forbes Magazine as one of the Top 10 political websites, SpeakOut offers users a wide variety of news and information tailored to their interests, and activism tools allowing aggregated messaging to a vast array of public officeholders, candidates, business and news executives. SpeakOut.com invites users to participate in surveys and market research through its patent-pending NterceptTM research technology that brings the research room to the living room. NterceptTM provides real time, second-by-second analysis and allows for larger panels of respondents than ever before, with a lower cost and greater speed. About U Mass Boston The University of Massachusetts Boston was established in 1964 to provide the opportunity for superior education at moderate cost to the people of Greater Boston. Located on an 175-acre campus on the Columbia Point peninsula, UMass Boston is nationally recognized as a model of excellence for urban universities. Contact
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