ABC News Partners With Facebook for 2008 Election Coverage

By Daisy Whitney

ABC News struck a partnership with trendy social-networking site Facebook to provide political and debate information for the 2008 election.

The deal is the latest in a series of linkups between old media and new media for the elections. CNN has partnered with YouTube to air debates, while MySpace has teamed with MTV to present a “presidential dialogue series” featuring presidential hopefuls.

Under the ABC-Facebook deal, Facebook will offer an application to its 56 million users that includes tools for supporting the candidates, discussing the campaign and featuring ABC news political content and stories from the campaign. The application will include debate groups, up-to-the-minute news and video and online surveys of Facebook users.

Facebook is growing fast and now commands 1% of all US Internet traffic, double a year ago, according to audience measurement firm Hitwise.

The social-networking site, however, has come under fire in recent days for a new application called Beacon, part of Facebook’s new ad platform that publishes information on a user’s purchases to his or her friends list.