Joe Biden's VP Nomination Due to Searchles TV Channels?

Now legally we can't say this...and it would be silly to suggest such things. But back in the pre-primary days a certain Delaware Senator was making great use of certain web tools to spread campaign videos far and wide - packaged in one player - and now he's Barack Obama's running mate.

All suggestions aside - these are exciting times in the Election! Below is a Searchles TV channel created by one of our users with full footage of Obama's introduction of Joe Biden in Springfield this past Saturday. You can also view the channels Biden's Presidential Campaign put together on Searchles here. We can't wait to see some Searchles TV channels with footage from the Conventions!

Who's the Most Social?: Quick Rundown of Community Features on Top Political Blogs

We all know newspapers and traditional media in general are all scrambling and sorting out the most effective, engaging, and ad-friendly ways to go social - and some are doing a pretty good job. An NYU School of Journalism blog outlined the best blogging news sites earlier in the year with The Houston Chronicle taking the cake with their Commons section and the Washington Post on its heels (woo hoooo DC & Searchles Discovery). But what about the new-age-y political blogs that are supposed to be on the cutting edge of this social media game? How are they sizing up in engaging their community, forums, comments, connectivity (what does that even mean?)? Here's a quick, sorta comprehensive overview of what Politico, Daily Kos, Wonkette, and The Huffington Post are doing socially (or not):

Politico:

Impressive
* Shows number of profile views on user-profiles - who doesn't love that little ego-boost.
* Offers reader-generated blogs (the ultimate sign of trust) - user-profiles are also pretty comprehensive with bio, comment history, forum post history, friends.

Disappointing
* Comments on certain blog posts and comments in forums/on articles do not always connect back to user-profiles. In this particular post, the comments don't link anywhere. What gives? If I'm trying to build up my comment history why would I want my comment on an article to have a disconnect with my profile? Who knows, maybe individual Politico bloggers decide how they'd like their comment section to function but it doesn't make much sense to me.

HuffingtonPost

Impressive
* Tabbed profile - classy. Stats Board breaks down comments and fans pretty easily.
* Comments between blogs & articles connected - toot toot, beep beep.

Disappointing
* No quick insight into what a user is about from their profile - have to read through the comments & headlines one by one.
* No user blogs - I'm sure HuffPo readers would take advantage of another medium to state their opinions.

DailyKos

Impressive
* Every user in the community can have a Diary - extremely comprehensive profile

Disappointing
* Profile is almost too comprehensive (a plus and a minus?), ratings are confusing, and I really don't know what this user is about without taking some time to read through things. Who has that kinda time??

Wonkette:

Impressive:
* The first security question option was "first kiss?" which is a much better jaunt down memory lane than first-grade teacher.
* Wonkette is very DC - I'll throw that out as a "Like".

Disappointing
* None of the comments link through to profiles!! WTF!! No sense of community whatsoever. All I can do is edit my profile info. It's like Wonkette doesn't really want to know anything about me.

WINNER: I'm gonna go with Politico here...Profiles are both comprehensive and easy to navigate. Has a whole separate community section with reader blogs. BUT, some of the issues I've brought up here outline why we implemented Searchles Discovery widgets. None of the user-profiles or blog posts on these four sites offer related users - users that match up and may be interested in interacting based upon their activity, what sorts of issues they're actively commenting on, etc. Check out this WashingtonPost profile (from their Discussion Groups section) to get an idea. What's the point of all this social networking if we can't make meaningful connections?