CommunityCOUNTS, an open source web platform, helps spark, collect, rank and compel discussion around an assortment of web content from text to video, including support for YouTube, MySpace, and Blip.tv. It can be used to run simple rankings or a self-organizing Q&A. It started as a way for people to have a say in the YouTube Debates (NPR). Afterwards, it became the backbone of techPresident's 10Questions, a video forum for the Presidential candidates (Wired), and most recently, it was used by a broad coalition to collect questions for the President (National Journal).

We were happy to see the White House adopt the use of such a forum with Open For Questions, and we wanted to do our part to help foster this developing spirit of engagement by making these tools available to more elected officials (Washington Post Interview). The communityCOUNTS Town Hall feature makes available a dedicated communityCOUNTS forum to all sitting members of Congress for use as they see fit. Our hope is that they will choose to engage with their constituents either as part of an ongoing Q&A or perhaps they will simply solicit feedback on upcoming legislation. Either way, these forums promise a real-time look at the concerns of their constituents. If you're a staffer looking to claim this forum, please send us an email. If you're a constituent, use the contact info provided, and let your legislators know that you'd like them to claim their forums.