by Michelle Lentz
That’s a rather high-falutin’ title for this post, really, especially when you consider it’s following Bacon Man.
That said, we all know the Web is playing a bigger role than ever in this year’s Presidential election. Although I’m trying not to get to emotionally involved in the election this year (that didn’t work out for me 4 years ago), I have been playing with a few web sites out there. Interestingly, a lot of the sites are through Google.
Google Maps Election Gallery: I’ve made my own Google maps before, usually of wineries. This takes that interactivity to a new level. There is a collection of maps, including Obama’s life journey, McCain’s life journey, locations of election-related Tweets, primary results, fundraising, and so forth.
Google Maps Voting Locations: This little widget is incomplete as of yet. By mid-October, the folks at Google will have loaded all the relevant information and let you know where your polling booth is located. Right now it will provide you with voter registration information.
Google Mobile Election Info: When you’re on the go and you just have to know the latest, you can check out Google Mobile’s Election page, specifically set up for mobile browsers. (http://m.google.com/elections) The site provides search results for both Obama and McCain, as well as mobile maps, YouTube, and more.
Google PowerReader: This use of Google Reader is an almost overpowering amount of information from the top political journalists and the campaigns themselves.
Electoral-Vote.com: Yep, a non-Google site. I can’t decide if this is a new site or the same one I followed, almost religiously, back in 2004. The site keeps you abreast of, well, a little bit of everything. You can see red states, blue states, and almost red and almost blue states as well as follow Senate and House races. Posts at the bottom, from the Votemaster, keep you up to date on just about everything happening politically.
Twitter Debate Graph: I find this fascinating. Twitter has created a graph of the spike in tweets during specific times in the recent Presidential debate.
Also a strange source of endless fascination, the Twitter Election 2008 site, showing a constant stream of tweets containing keywords such as election, Palin, Obama, McCain, Biden, and more.
Of course, I haven’t covered all the helpful sites out there, and I haven’t begun to mention the countless (countless!) political bloggers out there. What sites are you using to help track the election?
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Contact Michelle with your news, apps, and events via email, Twitter, Pownce, or FriendFeed. Visit Michelle at Wine-Girl.net and Write Technology. You can also catch Michelle presenting on Twitter at the upcoming DevLearn ‘08 in San Jose.
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