Presidential Hopefuls Online
Hillary Rodhman Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards all have their official campaign sites up and running (technically, Rodham Clinton and Obama’s are exploratory committee websites, but I would note that the word “exploratory” does not appear above the fold on Rodham Clinton’s).
None of the three is especially breathtaking to me, though Edwards (despite my general distaste for him) has an extremely well designed splash page. I’m not a big fan of the rest of the site. And somebody’s trying to be a little Web 2.0 — he has links to pages on Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Flickr plus an RSS link and a signup for SMS alerts. This is just downright tacky and it reflects poorly on the seriousness of the candidate (to be fair, this isn’t a serious candidate — it’s John Edwards).
Obama has the best-looking site overall, though it’s quite barren other than that. Don’t have much to say other than that. And I appreciate the lack of MySpace links.
Rodham Clinton has the most content-heavy website, to be sure, though it’s looks oddly like a slightly glossier version of JohnKerry.com. The webcast seems like a corny idea, but as I’m watching it I kind of like the idea. My only real complaint is length — it’s only a half-hour, I’d like to see one hour — and the other is just techincal: loading a Java applet and a Real Media plugin nearly crashed my browser. One interesting thing about her website is that the word “Clinton” just isn’t visible on the website at all.
18:19 gripe: “I support all kinds of ethanol” :-O
One thing I’ve noticed in all three sites is the heavy amount of video content. In 2004, we saw campaign ads online but little more. Now we’re seeing mini-documentaries about each candidate. I guess I like it. One thing I dislike is that all three sites are HTML 4 — and none completely valid.