After looking at that hub, one might think that it looks more or less like the Google News “Elections” section, but it is different. It has a number of different filtering options on news content and added data related to this year’s campaigns. Additionally, it allows visitors to access the predefined filters, which are accurately made for the major U.S. presidential candidates (President Obama along with seven Republicans). Along with it, one would even notice a number of primary issues being discussed (healthcare, government spending, etc.).
In Google News, there are a couple of similar options, which helps users to filter options for candidates. An example of the same is this breakout of Mitt Romney news.
The hub gets a ‘+1’ especially for its data and localization. One might know that the Iowa Caucuses is here, one can view the On the Ground section maps news and video content from around the state.
There is even a Trends page that lets users compare search data, along with Google News mentions and YouTube video views for each of the eight candidates.
Back in 2008, the search engine giant, Google, had launched a similar hub during the 2008 presidential election, but that was not all. Later on, they even came up with launched a Onebox helping people find their local polling stations.
Google has made use of a number of its services for this election campaign and it seems it is providing every possible view to the people of the U.S., so that they get an encouragement to vote and at the same time, would even be reminded of when the elections are held and where. Moreover, people here would even get knowledge about the representatives.
Eric Hysen on the official company blog wrote a few details about this new site. He said that the site allows citizens to “study, watch, discuss, learn about, participate in and perhaps make an impact on the digital campaign trail as it blazes forward to Tuesday, November 6, 2012.” He continued noting, “There’s no question that the Internet is set to deliver more political information, opinion and news than any other medium throughout the 2012 U.S. elections.”
A similar noting was made by Mashable, as told to the website by a Google spokesperson:
“As Nov. 6, 2012, draws closer, the site will evolve into a robust election hub where citizens can watch, learn, discuss, participate — and perhaps even make an impact on — the digital campaign trail as it blazes forward to the election of the next President of the United States.”
The initiative from Google is accurate, but one will have to wait and see, as to how many people make use of this unique website to know more and in detail about the election campaigns.