Politics 2.0: Election Widget
The Washington Post has about 9 standard widgets -newsfeeds a bit like the Netscape one I have on the right hand side of my blog. But this new one The Issue Tracker is cool:You can see that you can select a date range. I like the possibilities of this for traditional media – a mashup…
The Washington Post has about 9 standard widgets -newsfeeds a bit like the Netscape one I have on the right hand side of my blog. But this new one The Issue Tracker is cool:
You can see that you can select a date range. I like the possibilities of this for traditional media – a mashup and analysis tool put in the hands of the subscriber. The ability to select which candidates you are interested in is both convenient and scary:
The “Issue Coverage Tracker” allows users to read articles, breaking news and commentary right in the application’s window, and also to choose which candidates or topics to stay updated on. Customization was key, according to Jim Brady, executive editor, washingtonpost.com, who said: “Some people don’t care about what everyone is saying about everything. They just want to know about the press that’s covering their Senator, or Giuliani, or the war in Iraq.”
Scary because we become even more one-eyed than we normally are. Then again – we turn the TV station over when the boring stuff comes on, right? Well, Sport anyway. 🙂
“We’re measuring how much traffic gets driven back to our site, but that’s not the only metric,” said Brady. “Having a cool widget on Facebook is a good thing for us, because it uses a small space to show off a feature that says you can get valuable info from washingtonpost.com.”
Brady added that if publishers build widgets just to drive traffic, they’re missing the point: “A lot of people are putting widgets on sites that they use all day long–they may not go to other sites. Making our content portable is an important part of our core philosophy that our readers should be able to engage with our content and with each other around our content where and how they choose.”
By October, washingtonpost.com plans to follow the “Issue Coverage Tracker” with another widget that will keep track of campaign fund-raising and public appearance info, with trivia- and game-based applications also coming down the pike.
What cool media widgets do we have? Any for the election? Can you let me know here, or put them up on Bloggerati Australia? List them under widgets/gadgets/snippets? I’m trying to collect Australian widgets. Thanks m’loves.