Political Base - More Political Web 2.0 Sites to Come

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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.