MTV equips citizen journalists to cover Super Tuesday – with Nokia N95s

If you see people hovering around polling stations waving mobile phones today, they might just be with MTV. The MTV Street Team will be streaming video live with the Flixwagon app, coupled with Nokia N95s in a move similar to Robert Scoble’s live broadcasts from the World Economic  Forum via the Qik service.

Updates on the endeavour can be found at MTV’s Choose or Lose site with citizen journalists from each of the 23 states involved. Among the site’s highlights is the interactive map that shows pinpoints where various Street Team members are streaming live.

Mashable.com’s Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins brings up a few worthy concerns on the endeavor: “there are a number of laws regarding exactly where a member of the press can stand outside a polling place, and violation of those laws can be Federal offenses”. He also wonders if any of the Street Team members might actually turn out to be part of a candidate’s campaign staff. That would be a severe blow to the effort’s credibility and might endanger future efforts to push New Media’s boundaries.

Nokia’s efforts to showcase its multimedia phones every chance they get is intriguing in one aspect – why aren’t the other mobile phone makers getting in on this? With the resurgence of moblogging(mobile blogging)’s popularity and the masses’ embrace of cameraphones, why is there less emphasis on video on mobile? There is a demand and interest in user-generated content as evidenced by YouTube’s popularity so unless other makers like LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson step up to the plate, Nokia might end up singlehandedly owning the mobile Net video pie.

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