What do you get when you mix user-submitted video, the news judgement of NPR, and user-community of seemingly all single, unmarried, childless democrats? Well, in a word: Current.tv. This cable channel wasn't so much news as reality video, and it was created to compete for mind share with XBox and YouTube, not with CNN and Fox News. Developed by Al Gore, the TV network was ridiculed early on for airing user-submitted video, but the idea turned out to be a profitable one, if only to a painfully tiny TV audience. Airing a ton of essentially unknown, royalty-free content has a way of doing exactly those things--lowering costs and viewership at the same time.

The problem Current ran into was that people who watch cable don't generally get too excited about user-submitted video (unless it's reruns of AFV). That's the domain of YouTube, and the young, liberal audience targeted by Current probably spends more time online than they do parked on the couch. Gore's development specialists noticed this shortcoming quickly and redeveloped Current.tv into Current.com, which launches October 16.

The new site doesn't prop up the Current TV network as much as the old one does, though that's not the biggest change: Current is now a sort of Digg-for-social-media, with an obvious emphasis on video and video commentary threads, a la YouTube or Vlip. The new Current has wisely hidden the raw number of up or down Digg-style votes a particular item receives, instead opting to show percentages and hide the actual trends.

If Al Gore wants to transform the typically-cynical, MySpacing, twenty-something demographic into a group that actually cares about politics and social issues, the new Current might be the ticket. But enabling discourse through what is basically indy film-making? The notion of mixing art and issues is great for entertainment, but will it service Al Gore's mission? It will be interesting to see if Current sits in the happy median.