Are you a political junkie? I must admit that I have been very involved in politics since college. Don’t worry I won’t talk politics on Newest on the Net. Politics and the Internets don’t mix, just ask Senator Stevens. Political Base has just recently launched and its timing is excellent. With the 2008 election just over a year away, I predict that many more political websites and Web 2.0 political social networks will pop-up around the Internet. I have been using Political Base for about a week so let me give you my thoughts.

Political Base has a ton of features (maybe too many). You could surf around this site for a whole week and not discover every nook and cranny. Here are some of its main features.

Political News:

The front page of PoliticalBase.com highlights news stories submit by Political Base users. These news stories are moderated by staff, but there is a pretty cool system for getting your stories on Political Bases’ front page.

For brand new users Political Base moderates all new content submitted into the system. The content is either added or deleted within 24 hours after the submission is made. As users submit quality content, they earn points which rank them in the community and open up more editing options in a less strict environment, often earning live edit access to the majority of the site. Submissions made are moderated by an internal staff and by high scoring users from within our user-base. At any time you can view your point score at the top-right of your “my base” section.

I am a little disappointed by this system. I think that something more Digg like would be better and certainly more social. I kind of feel that Political Base has missed the social aspects of Web 2.0 with this system. However, I see a lot of problems with social voting and politics. People give thumbs up to stories espousing political beliefs that they want to promote, not good writing.

Follow the Money Trail:

One of my favorite features is Political Base’s money section. Political Base shows you how much money candidates have raised and from what states and counties they have raised it from. I am not sure that many people will really care about this, but for a political junkie like myself it is pretty interesting.

Issues:

Another cool feature is the Issues section. Political Base allows readers to edit that political issues pages using a Wiki style page format. These pages will be moderated to make sure that the content is quality content.

Forums:

Political Base also has a forums sections. So far the activity is low to moderate, but I hope that once the community builds there will be better discussion.

People:

Political Base’s people section is similar to the wiki pages found in the issues section. You can find great information about political figures and candidates.

Conclusion:

With the 2008 election coming up this site has an excellent chance to be a success. The popularity of politics tends to follow a two to four year wave based upon the congressional elections and the presidential elections. No doubt, PolitcalBase.com is riding the wave for the 2008 election season.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to guest blog on Jason Blanton’s blog Success For Your Blog.  The topic of my article is ways to say thank you to your readers.  Please go check it out.  Here is an excerpt from this article.

Since starting Newest on the Net, here are the ways I have thanked my reader.

1. MyBlogLog – Installing MyBlogLog is a great way to track who is visiting your blog. Whenever a new person shows up on MyBlogLog, I click their picture and leave a thank you message at the MyBlogLog site.
2. Bumpzee – Like MyBlogLog, I install the Bumpzee widget on my blog and thank my Bumpzee visitors.
3. BlogCatalog – This is another widget that you can use to track visitors and say thank you.
4. Reply to Commenters – Whenever someone leaves a comment on your blog, make sure that you reply to their comments. Even if you just make a small post acknowledging their posts, it will encourage future commenting.
5. Email Commenters – Send emails to your commenters telling them thank you for visiting your blog and leaving a comment. This presents another great opportunity for you to ask them to subscribe to your RSS feed.

The first part of this RSS subscriber series examines why RSS subscribers are the foundation for a successful blog. Many beginning and experienced bloggers spend too much time worrying about increasing traffic and not increasing the number of people subscribing to their blogs. This is very short sighted. RSS subscribers are the bedrock of a successful blog.

RSS Subscribers Are Your Most Loyal Readers:

People who subscribe to your blog are your most loyal readers. By subscribing they are saying that they do not want to miss any of your articles. They are saying that your work is important to them and they want to read more. This loyal base of readers needs to be established and cared for.

This is especially true for a blog like Newest on the Net. RSS subscribers are usually tech savvy and demanding of information. These are the perfect type of readers for a blog focused on the latest trends online, like blogging and social media.

RSS Subscribers Represent a Very Stable Source of Traffic:

All bloggers are focused on increasing traffic to their blogs. There are several sources of traffic, including direct referrals, social media sites, search engines and RSS subscribers. RSS subscribers are your most stable source of traffic. If Google would go out of business tomorrow, your RSS subscribers would still be able to find you.

RSS Subscribers Are More Likely to Link to Your Blog:

Next to increasing traffic, the second most important thing for bloggers is getting backlinks. A lot of RSS subscribers are bloggers themselves. These bloggers are more likely to link to your content because they are seeing each of your articles in their feed readers. This makes RSS subscribers extremely important.

RSS Subscribers Are More Likely to Submit Your Sites to Social Networking Sites like Digg and Sphinn:

In order to make the front page of Digg or Sphinn or to maximize the number of stumbles you get on StumbleUpon, you need a consistent group of readers who vote for your content. There is no better group of people than your RSS subscribers. These RSS subscribers have the power to make your articles go viral and without them you can have the best content in the world but your articles will go no where.

To summarize, RSS subscribers are so important because,

• They are your most loyal readers;

• They are a very stable traffic source;

• People who subscribe to your blogs are more likely to linkback to your articles; and

• RSS subscribers are great for submitting your articles to social media sites.

What are some other reasons that RSS subscribers are important?

Since creating Newest on the Net about thirty days ago, one of my main priorities has been increasing the number of people subscribing to my RSS feed. Due to this focus on increasing subscribers, I decided to write a series of articles dedicated to RSS subscriptions. In the following days and weeks, I will write a series of articles examining RSS feeds.

This series will include articles on,

· The importance of RSS subscribers

·  35 Tips to Increase RSS Subscribers

· Getting RSS subscribers to read your articles

· Monetization of RSS feeds

I hope that you will like this series. If there are any topics that you would like me to cover, please leave a comment or a question. I will incorporate your questions and comments into my articles. Anytime I incorporate your comments or questions into these articles, I will link to your blog. I really hope that in this way we will generate a lot of great conversation around these topics.

If you don’t want to miss any of these articles, please subscribe to my blog.

Google is acquiring Jaiku!! As set forth on the Jaiku blog, Google has acquired Jaiku and integration efforts are beginning immediately. While they have declined to state what these engineering efforts will entail, I can’t wait to see the outcome.

Jaiku, like Twitter, is a microblogging platform. Jaiku advertises itself as an activity stream and presence sharing service. I have used both Jaiku and Twitter and must admit that I like Jaiku better than Twitter. However, I have more friends on Twitter so I tend to do more tweeting.

Jaiku has halted sending out new invitations, but existing members can still send out new invitations. If you would like one, please send me an email. Otherwise you can apply for an invitation here.