'ZotFish' Lets Anyone Ask Questions of Celebrities, Politicians, Athletes

Seeks to create 'town hall meeting' at Internet-wide scale

NEW YORK, June 2 /PRNewswire/ -- What if you could ask Barack Obama a question, and get him to answer you? ZotFish.com, a website launched this past week, wants to let you do exactly that: it gives everyone the chance to ask their most pressing questions of over 400 celebrities, politicians, athletes, and other public figures.

"We want to enable direct, unfiltered communication between the public and public figures," says Michael Baldwin, founder of ZotFish, "and make celebrities and politicians accessible like never before." The site has no editors, and operates democratically -- all questions are user-submitted, and get voted on by other users, so anyone can see the "top questions" of the moment.

On the site, you can ask questions of actors like Sean Penn and Natalie Portman, musicians like Shakira and Norah Jones, and authors like Stephen King and Salman Rushdie. Everything is fair game -- from the clothes they wear to details of their work. However, while Baldwin predicts that entertainment questions will be the most popular, it's in politics that he believes the site will be truly revolutionary.

"People today are disconnected from politics, because they feel like their voice isn't heard. We want to bring personal democracy back to life, the way it was with town hall meetings after America's founding. There's no reason we shouldn't have that kind of direct dialog at a national level, via the Internet," explains Baldwin.

The site includes national politicians like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, as well as select mayors, governors, and congressmen. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino is there too. Alana Taylor of Mashable (the top social networking news site) wrote the day of ZotFish's launch, "as long as there's participation, there's no reason why it shouldn't work."

It has benefits for public figures, too. Instead of waiting to schedule press conferences or put together releases, they can log in whenever they want to answer a question or two. And they don't need to worry if the media will pick it up -- on ZotFish, answers that users find the most interesting get voted up to the front page.

"But politicians should be careful about being evasive," notes Baldwin. "The public will notice and vote them down. And if fifty thousand Internet users take the time to vote your answer down, it's time to rethink what you're saying."

But if fifty thousand vote them up, it could help their credibility. And if you're Barack Obama, they're going to tell you if they believe your rhetoric or not.

About ZotFish:

ZotFish (http://www.zotfish.com/) allows Internet users to submit and vote on questions for celebrities, politicians, and other famous public figures. Then, public figures are able to respond directly to questions they choose. Launched on May 30, 2008, it is based in New York.

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Source: ZotFish

CONTACT: Michael Baldwin, Founder and Director of PR, ZotFish, +1-646-592-3873, baldwin@zotfish.com

Web site: http://www.zotfish.com/

2008-06-02 18:14:15 0375344 PRNEWSWIRE