election

The Internet didn’t break yesterday, and if there was ever a day for that to happen it was Election Day 2008 in America. Akamai’s Net Usage Index for News recorded the highest number of website visitors per minute in history, placing Barack Obama’s historic win at the top at the chart.

If the importance of this presidential election has you feeling anxious, fresh stats from Hitwise may not help much.  Essentially, they act as a reminder that the world's watching, and UK residents in particular seem to be interested in a couple of political figures.There's been a high volume of searches for Barack Obama since (at least) late last year.  Only on a few occasions have searches for the UK's own prime minister, Gordon Brown, become more common.  Meanwhile, interest in Joe Biden has remained quite low even after his nomination.

Google has been very involved with this election. They've released tools for voters to find out voting information. They've released a tool for volunteers to help recruit voters.

Ask.com, a web site that offers search for web sites, images, news, blogs, video, maps and directions, local search and shopping, launched their new “Election Poll Smart Answers” that gives you local polling information in just one click: and it’s a lot faster and easier than any other major search engine. Ask.com Smart Answers are special search results placed at the top of the Ask.com search results page that have quick facts and links to authoritative content from highly respected sources.

Yesterday the New York Times spoke of the ‘success’ of Yahoo during this election marathon that is thankfully winding up (I hope) in the next 48 hours. This election process has been a boon for news sites and the equivalent of a ‘millstone around the neck’ for people like me. How much more can one say or do or think or accuse or lie or point fingers about at this point?

Cisco has released a new survey conducted by Compete about the influence of online video and social media applications on American's political engagement.The Internet was cited by 62 percent of respondents as a regularly used source for 2008 presidential election information and coverage, which was surpassed only by television (82%).Traffic to popular online video sites increased fivefold in 2008 compared to 2004. About 30 percent of registered voters said they used online video to follow 2008 presidential election coverage.

It’s probably safe to say (I think, gulp) this election season has been an especially vicious one. So, if you feel your violent urges starting to get the better of you—like one rally attendee who reportedly kicked a journalist in the leg—release that tension with a killer Mortal Kombat-style Flash animation game called “Kung Fu Election” from Atom.com.

Last night Twitter launched an Election site that features Tweets involving the presidential and vice presidential candidates rolling in almost faster than you can read them. In Twitter's words, "We’re filtering hundreds of Twitter updates per minute to create a new source for gathering public opinion about the presidential election and a new way for you to share your thoughts."