South Africa: The Times launches election site
Posted by Alisa Zykova on February 24, 2009 at 4:42 PM
South African newspaper The Times has launched a new website that will be focused on covering the country's general elections, to be held on April 22, 2009. Saelections.co.za features news material and opinions from thetimes.co.za as well as information about the election from various Internet outlets and blogs, media analysis and interactive tools like Web voting.
Opinions and analysis are provided by contributors such as editors, columnists and bloggers from The Times and Sunday Times as well as politics expects and "thought leaders" from the field, wrote Biz Community. Furthermore, Media Tenor, which offers research on media, is tendering to graphs and annalsis. Saelections.co.za also contains links to Facebook groups, Twitter feeds and numerous political and electoral associations.
Opinions and analysis are provided by contributors such as editors, columnists and bloggers from The Times and Sunday Times as well as politics expects and "thought leaders" from the field, wrote Biz Community. Furthermore, Media Tenor, which offers research on media, is tendering to graphs and annalsis. Saelections.co.za also contains links to Facebook groups, Twitter feeds and numerous political and electoral associations.
An "online followers" log appears on the website, urging users to
register and support their preferred political party. Since the site's
launch on February 17, almost 2,500 votes have been registered online.
The parties' Facebook groups have been following the site and have
begun to persuade members to vote online.
"We're also planning on launching a number of additional features in the coming weeks, including polls and surveys, a mobile site with SMS voting, interactive maps and graphs and integration of other web feeds such as Twitter and Flickr," Times Online Publisher Colin Daniels said.
Last month, the UK's Labour Party launched LabourList, a website inspired by the Huffington Post, to counteract the popularity of the centre-right's ConservativeHome site. The initiative may have been spurred by the necessity to comprehend and exploit "grass-roots" social networks, but its success was questioned since founder Derek Draper was considered to be a relatively inexperienced blogger.
The Washington Post also recently launched political site WhoRunsGov.com offering information on members of the US government and a blog about news in Washington.
Source: Biz Community
"We're also planning on launching a number of additional features in the coming weeks, including polls and surveys, a mobile site with SMS voting, interactive maps and graphs and integration of other web feeds such as Twitter and Flickr," Times Online Publisher Colin Daniels said.
Last month, the UK's Labour Party launched LabourList, a website inspired by the Huffington Post, to counteract the popularity of the centre-right's ConservativeHome site. The initiative may have been spurred by the necessity to comprehend and exploit "grass-roots" social networks, but its success was questioned since founder Derek Draper was considered to be a relatively inexperienced blogger.
The Washington Post also recently launched political site WhoRunsGov.com offering information on members of the US government and a blog about news in Washington.
Source: Biz Community
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