Yahoo already has a 2008 election site with deep content on the candidates and issues. But digging through all that content to find relevant stats comparing the candidates can take awhile. This afternoon the Elections team launched a new part of the site, called Dashboard, which contains basic polling and funding stats for each candidate in one easy to read screen. Each candidate is listed, Democrats on the left and Republicans on the right. Next to each candidate’s picture are four basic stats: recent polling results, based on aggregated poll averages from Real Clear Politics “buzz” which shows the relative popularity based solely on Yahoo search queries prediction market, which shows the likelihood of a candidate to win based on real world, real money bets placed at Intrade, an Irish company total money raised for each candidate Comparing the basic stats is fascinating. Ron Paul, for example, is only polling 4% versus other Republican candidates, but he has a whopping 37% relative to other candidates in searches. The prediction markets, though, are probably the most accurate data when it comes to predicting the actual winner of each primary. Hillary Clinton shows a current 61.3% likelihood of winning, even though she is only polling at 43%. When it comes to predictions, I’ll be watching the people betting real money vs. poll results. Users can also click and see the data on a state-by-state basis, and see other demographic data. Click on any candidate and a pop up window appears with more detailed information (see screen shot below). For people watching the elections, Yahoo’s election site, along with new startup Political Base (see our October coverage), are excellent resources. Of course, if you just can’t be bothered with following the news, this site will tell you who to vote for. If you’re wondering why Yahoo, Political Base and lots of other companies are being so aggressive in rolling out election-based content sites, here’s why: a record $1 billion or more will be spent this year by the various campaigns in selling their candidates. Everyone wants their share of that huge cash pie. CrunchBase Information Political Base Whiskey Media Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
In the event you’re in too much of a hurry to check out the presidential candidates yourself, the Internet can now do it for you. Connect2Elect is a new website that lets users add candidate attributes and issue positions that are important to them, and see who they should vote on. Issues are broken down by social (abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research), political (Iraq war, taxes, immigration) and core beliefs (welfare, gun rights). Clearly there is some overlap and room to argue over categorization, but the basic idea is that you click on issues that matter to you and order them. You then see a results screen with candidate values mapped to your own. Voila! You know who to vote for. Overall I think the service is well executed (it was built by introNetworks, a white label social network startup). But it strikes me as somewhat lame to choose a candidate based only on their official policies, which reflect little more than current popular opinion. In related stuff, see our recent coverage of PoliticalBase, a new database driven startup around candidates and issues, and let us know what questions you’d like us to ask in our upcoming podcast discussion with Mitt Romney, a republican candidate for president. → Read More
Shelby Bonnie left the company he co-founded with Halsey Minor, CNET, just about one year ago. This morning he launches his next startup, PoliticalBase. The site, which focuses on local, state and national elections and other political matters, is timed perfectly to take advantage of the 2008 presidential elections and the estimated $4.5 billion that will be spent on advertising to promote candidates and issues. PoliticalBase is a structured Wiki that encourages research and debate. Users can edit most of the text but can’t change the underlying database structure. That allows the site to slice and dice data for comparison purposes (something that can’t be done with the free-for-all Wikipedia) but still gives the site’s community the ability to create and edit content. The site is broken down into interconnected categories, including money, people, issues, elections, etc. Clicking on, say Rudy Giuliani shows information on that presidential candidate, including the amount of money raised to date, his religion and party affiliation and biographical information. At the bottom of the page his position on key issues is also shown (for fun, register for the site and click that you do not support him – see how his picture changes). The Money area of the site is fascinating. PoliticalBase has collected public information on presidential donations made by individuals. Click on any state and then click on a county and see information on each individual contribution, down to the last dollar. Want to skip to the good stuff? Go to the celebrity area and see that, for example, Marc Andreessen gave $2,300 to the Barack Obama campaign. Other areas of the site have hidden gems as well, such as integration of relevant YouTube videos into the pages. And as PoliticalBase attracts more users and gets more data, they’ll be able to do some interesting analysis and election predictions. PoliticalBase is located in Sausalito, just north of San Francisco. It’s been funded to date by the five cofounders, all former CNETers: Shelby Bonnie, Mike Tatum, Ethan Lance, Dave Snider and Andy McCurdy. CrunchBase Information Political Base Whiskey Media Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
