Facebook and ABC News have formally established a partnership that
allows Facebook members to electronically follow reporters from the
news network, view reports and video as well as participate in polls
and debates, all within the new “U.S. Politics” category.  ABC and
Facebook made the announcement by way of the New York Times this
afternoon, and hope to “extend the dialogue both before and after the
[Democratic and Republican debates January 5th], according to Facebook. 

This type of reporting isn’t new to the Internet.  Pajamas Media
is a prominent example of the type of high profile political
blogging has been going on for years on the Internet. Their brand of
journalism allows statistically significant polls as well as public
interaction with the journalists and bloggers involved. This is the
type of spirit attempting to be captured here by ABC, allowing users to
interact with reporters for the ABC News organization.

Given the fact that now more political polls for the ABC network
will be run through Facebook’s site, we can certainly expect the social
networkization of this election.  It was interesting that no
money exchanged hands between Facebook and ABC, making Facebook the
clear winner. The user-base can be monetized six ways to Sunday under
their new ad initiatives. On the other hand, ABC could have easily
accomplished their goals to allow interaction between reporters and
viewers by implementing social tools and widgets on their web sites,
and perhaps migrating towards a more blog-style content management
system.

[via NY Times]