Sites turn to mobile for election coverage

The presidential contest that will – almost certainly – be decided this week may be remembered as the point where politics collided with mobile. And I’m not talking just about Barack Obama’s text-message campaign.
A small army of wireless players is hoping to exploit the buzz surrounding the race for the White House, using the high-profile event to attract mainstream consumers to the world of mobile content. And traditional media companies have eagerly complied, teaming with mobile companies in an effort to expand their offerings to mobile.
The Associated Press last week teamed with U.S. Cellular to launch an on-deck site centered on content from this year’s races including coverage from swing states Missouri and North Carolina – two of the carrier’s markets – as well as comprehensive election night coverage. NewsGator Technologies Inc., a Denver-based company that provides news-reader technologies, is bringing content from WashingtonPost.com and Newsweek to wireless users via Campaign Tracker, a free app for Microsoft Windows Mobile-enabled phones. And the popular online magazine Slate.com – a division of the Washington Post/Newsweek Interactive Co. – has teamed with Seattle’s Chimp Software to offer a downloadable version of its interactive polling application for iPhones.
“It’s essentially a mobile version of our Election Scorecard,” which offers the latest Electoral College polling information, said Slate Editor David Plotz. “It’s pretty straightforward, and it’s got great data because it’s pulling Pollster.com data. It’s very simple, and you can kind of take your level of data. If you’re data-crazy you can click though and go to the Pollster.com site, but most people, I think, just want the snapshot. And it’s really good at that.”
Slate offers a mobile Web site powered by Crisp Wireless, but Poll Tracker ’08 marks a major step into the world of downloadable apps for the site. The publication saw a chance to wade further into the space earlier this year when it noticed an elections-related offering from the one-man developer in Apple’s App Store and thought it could improve the product as it tapped a new distribution channel.
“We have heavy mobile users in general, but the iPhone had some magic” among Slate readers, Plotz said. “So we were looking for an opportunity and we saw the developer in Washington state. We went to Aaron Brethorst (of Chimp Software) and said you’re using data that isn’t as good as what we’ve got” and the partnership was formed.
Meanwhile, Access 360 Media has teamed with a voter-mobilization group called 18 in ’08 to deploy a cross-platform campaign to get young voters engaged in politics. ShopTheVote.org features celebrities and office-holders to encourage users to create and upload videos online and to receive mobile alerts and other content on their phones.
Mobile search companies have moved aggressively into election-related content as well. Go2 Media operates a wireless Web site dedicated to both “general and college-specific news” from CBS, updated election results and candidate profiles. And ChaCha, an innovative offering that uses human “guides” instead of computers and algorithms to deliver mobile search results, has partnered with Rock the Vote to answer political questions sent to the dedicated short code RTVOTE.
And as you might expect, Google Inc. has built a particularly impressive array of elections-based mobile offerings. The Internet giant has launched a mobile election site with links to election-related news; mobile YouTube channels from both John McCain and Barack Obama; and links to search results for both candidates that eliminate the need to type in names for every search.
What’s more, Google won’t just help you get informed, they’ll help you turn out the vote. The company last week expanded its voter information tools to mobile, allowing volunteers to type in the home address of registered voters to access their voting locations. And the offering integrates with Google Maps for mobile, helping volunteers direct voters to the polling places.
That approach contrasts with that of Slate, of course, which must pinch pennies as it expands its digital efforts “with a staff of developers you could fit in a closet,” as Plotz said. But while their scale varies drastically, both companies acknowledge the importance of mobile and the opportunity presented by huge news events like the Olympics and the presidential election.
“We are very eager to do mobile in lots of different ways,” said Plotz, noting that Slate doesn’t get a cut of revenues from the 99-cent app, opting instead to focus on extending its brand. “We’re a relatively small site. We have a huge amount of traffic but we’re very leanly staffed.. Mobile is something we have to find the resources for and the time for. But this thing with Aaron worked really well. It’s a question of finding opportunities like that and finding ways to do it.”