So with the Australian Federal Election coming up, the “new media” seems to be going a little wild. I thought I’d post a bit of a roundup of a few of the political websites I’m keeping an eye on.
Election Portals
Over the past couple of weeks there seem to be a bunch of sites calling themselves election portals or something similar. Overall, the election portal type sites I’ve seen covering the Aussie election have disappointed. Admittedly they’re all quite new, and maybe they’ll get better as content gets added, and I hope they do.
The most recent one I’ve seen (though probably the most established[1]) is the ABC’s election website, Australia Votes 2007. The ABC website is always a wealth of information, and their election coverage is pretty good[2].
Google released their Australian Federal Election Portal. I’m usually a huge fan of Google in general and the pretty fantastic stuff they offer the world. It’s also nice to see Google doing something which is totally Australian. I have to say I was initially a little underwhelmed and found it pretty light on content at this point. Having explored a little (and checked out the YouTube clip on how to use it I’ve changed my mind completely. The maps thing is pretty damn cool, but the content drill down is seriously awesome.
You’ve probably already heard about the YouTube channel which is kind of fun. I was seriously confused (and a little pissed off) today when I loaded the page up and found the video which plays when you first load up the site starts with American politics and then moves directly onto European politics before finally getting into Aussie politics at over two and a half minutes into the video. Why?
There’s also Crikey of course. I usually enjoy the writing of Crikey journalists[3], but I’ve never quite been compelled to join up.
As usual, Wikipedia is a pretty good source for general info if you just want a nice overview. And it’s always has plenty of links if you want further reading.
federalelection.com.au was also launched recently. They claim to be “a revolutionary portal and first for Australia” which “enables you to listen, watch, express your opinion AND shape the political discourse.” Though if you ask me, it really doesn’t raise the bar much.
If you know of any other election portal style sites out there, let me know in the comments. I’d be interested in a look.
Blogs
There are election and politics blogs too numerous to mention, but del.icio.us is probably a good place to start. Get ye electing!!
- They’ve had election sites for a few years, check out the 2004 federal election. [↩]
- In fact, the ABC does a great job of keeping up with web technologies. Far better than many of their commercial competitors. The number of feeds and podcasts and vodcasts, etc. that they offer is great. [↩]
- I can highly recommend the Crikey Guide to the 2007 Election. [↩]