Google Launches Australian Election Site
Duncan Riley
16 comments »
In what is claimed to be a world first (for Google), Google Australia has launched a dedicated Australian Election site.
The Google 2007 Australian Federal Election site offers links to YouTube videos from Australian political parties, a Google Maps mashup that provides House of Representatives electoral information by seat, and “election gadgets” that provide previous statements made by MP’s and Senators, Google News feeds and a Google Trend feature that tracks mentions of parties and issues. Data can also be viewed in Google Earth.
We’ve seen Google become involved in elections before; YouTube’s Presidential debates are well known. The Australian election site takes the idea one step further by offering a one stop shop of related information.
It’s not perfect, least not yet. Candidate information is lacking in Reps seats, probably due to the fact that in the Australian Election process candidates have 7 days to nominate for a seat once the election is officially called and hence there is no official list of candidate from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). However it wouldn’t take a lot of effort to add some candidate information with the two major parties having long since preselected candidates for the election; a good example is in the Australian Prime Minister’s seat of Bennelong, where the Australian Labor Party (ALP) has preselected a high profile candidate Maxine McKew, a former Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) journalist who is getting a lot of media in Australia. I’d note also that Google Australia’s Head of Corporate Communications & Public Affairs, and the lead on the Election site Rob Shilkin would know that this information is freely available as well, given he is was formerly involved in the Liberal Party. The use of YouTube is certainly different (and I’m not being totally polite); watching the Prime Minister deliver YouTube exclusive messages in a suit like he was making an address to the Nation doesn’t really strike a chord with me.
Disclosure: in a past life I was a Howard Government Staffer…twice, but since cured.
This is pretty cool stuff. Go Maxine!!
This is a danger to any system of government where public ignorance is the cornerstone of government policy.
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
It’s a lightweight contribution that leaves me wondering why the hell they bothered. I have posted on this and conclude that it’s a pissweak PR exercise that simply raises the Google flag while avoiding substance.
And Duncan, hang you head in shame lad.
John
I did say it wasn’t perfect, but given the general apathy of Australian’s towards the electoral process it’s not a particularly bad effort. Certainly (if and when the info is added) it’s an accessible tool for those looking for things like who’s running where they live, what do they stand for, that sort of thing, which may be available elsewhere, but lets face it, how many ppl would visit the ABC election site or the AEC?
I just developed and launched 2 political 2.0 sites in the U.S. for the 2008 Presidential Election:
VoteSpin’s goal is to encourage dialog and debate amongst voters (both young and old) with the hope of restoring democracy in the US. Traditionally younger voters have always had low voting turnouts. We aim to change this phenomenon while engaging all voters in healthy political debates to change minds, views, and positions. Using VoteSpin anyone can write a review on a candidate and then rate them accordingly (overall or by issues). Reviews support tagging and comments and the system emails the reviewer as debates spin from their review. Candidates can be sorted by party and rating so that we can see the current position of popularity in the polls and online. Voters can also invite buddies to receive RSS feeds of all debates and political activities.
Elect’d is a new Web 2.0 social voting experiment. This site allows political enthusiasts to nominate anyone for the next U.S. Presidential election and comment on existing nominees while they are at the site. No registration is required and the comments take the form of Twitter-like messages with thumbs up/down votes per message. It’s quick and fun and may expand to include additional Twitter-like features. It will be very interested to gauge the popular vote throughout the election cycle.
Anyone want to help me fund these gigs? I share with you a few big ideas about what happens with these sites after the election! Contact chris@getvocal.com.
That’s the dumbest thing they could do!
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the odder fact about all this - is this google’s first foray into content creation? what a lightweight play.
What Google’s really going to need — in my ridiculously self-serving world view — is to link to a database of legislation and legislators, one that would allow anyone to see what kind of bills the candidates have carried in the past, and what kind of things local governments are doing right now.
Our whole database isn’t built yet, but it’s getting there. As of today we have more than 40,000 pieces of legislation, and it’s growing every week.
What Google’s really going to need — in my ridiculously self-serving world view — is to link to a database of legislation and legislators, one that would allow anyone to see what kind of bills the candidates have carried in the past, and what kind of things local governments are doing right now.
Our whole database isn’t built yet, but it’s getting there. As of today we have more than 40,000 pieces of legislation, and it’s growing every week.
Could this be a precursor to a US version for 2008?
Google
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Here’s what I learned about new elections in Australia …
Duncan, us aussies apathetic about politics? really? I see the PMs first vid has 2,000 views….now I know that doesn’t really match up to the 200,000 that Barack Obama got in the first days or two, but…its a start…:-)
Maybe Johny boy needs an Obama style video to liven things up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKsoXHYICqU
More likely it will be a McCain Mama though:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IYrI-3ksyk
ha!