Google has a mega plans to have its presence at the Democratic National Convention. They are planning to have special kiosks that will offer voter information and other high end services like photo sharing and YouTube video uploading at various locations for categories of people including the press personnel, business people and citizens. Google makes use of every opportunity it gets to make people use its services and tools. Google’s planned presence at the Democratic National Convention is a clear example for the above.
Rick Klau, a Google product team leader, says that the main aim of Google in taking part in the convention is to gather information on how people sell their stories and how they gain access to their information. Klau has been identified and recruited to work in Google’s election team after knowing about his hobby website superdelegates.org which was created by him during his free time after his regular work at Google. Klau seems to have been very active in politics in the past and was very closely involved in Barack Obama campaign.
According to the latest information furnished by Klau, Google is not having any idea of selling ads in its convention page. Google seems to be working closely with the Democratic National Convention Committee in order to get appropriate information from the team for the convention’s website. They might also come up with a similar concept for the National Republican Convention in Minneapolis St. Paul as well. The efforts are already in progress.
Microsoft on the other hand also has a major role to play in this area. Microsoft’s Silverlight technology is proposed to be used for the official website of Democratic National Convention (demconvention.com).
There are a number of contributions by Google for Democratic National Convention and includes YouTube video upload booths at various Pepsi Centers or Big Tent which is bloggers favorite spot. There convention speakers would also be given a chance for to share their views and opinions about the status and progress of the Democratic National Convention when they come off the stage.
There would also be stations at Colorado Convention Center where delegates would be able to view the photo albums generated by Picasa and YouTube. This is an intelligent idea as this would give a chance for the delegates to know about the various happenings.
Voter Information kiosks would also be available at the 16th Street Mall which would provide various information pertaining to voter’s identity and other related official details. The public would also have the advantage of easily identifying the nearest polling station and other registration related information by using a Google Map. This would make the voting process simple and less chaotic.
Video search gadgets that are made available would help people in easily searching YouTube video files pertaining to the election. There are also options to make an easy search through convention speeches. As we can see Google is going full swing during this Democratic National Convention and for this is just the beginning of endless such efforts that are to follow from Google.