Facebook Selected for Political Portal
San Francisco, California - (Website Hosting Directory) - May 29, 2007 - Social utility portal, Facebook, has lent its platform, to Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, to launch a political application, so that it may integrate with the Facebook website and gain access to millions of users.
washingtonpost.com’s ”The Compass” and Slate’s ”Political Futures” applications are now available for Facebook users worldwide who are interested in becoming more engaged in present-day politics. washingtonpost.com’s ”The Compass” allows users to answer several questions that serve to determine where along the political spectrum their views fall. The results are then shared with the person’s Facebook network and they, in turn, are invited to answer.
As the user’s network responds to the questions, s/he is able to see how their answers compare to create a map of political ideology. Slate’s ”Political Futures” application allows users to choose where they would place a bet if they had $500 to wager on the outcome of the 2008 race for the White House. Leveraging Slate’s ”Political Futures” tool, which databases the big three political prediction markets, the application shows where the pretend wager falls in relation to real bets and maps out how other people in a user’s network placed their ”bets.”
Caroline Little, CEO and publisher of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive remarked, ”These applications are an excellent opportunity for our websites to engage and interact with Facebook’s 24 million users. We are excited to have a new way to share the political news we’re known for with such an active audience.”
Facebook is a social utility that offers an efficient way for people to stay connected with their friends and the people around them. Facebook users communicate and share information through the social graph, the network of connections and relationships between people. With more than 24 million active users, Facebook is the sixth-most trafficked website in the United States.
Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Facebook added, ”Facebook Platform creates an ecosystem for developers to build applications that deeply integrate into Facebook and use its social graph. By enabling developers to make applications within Facebook, we’re working together to create a better utility for millions of people.”
washingtonpost.com is an award-winning news and information web site of the Washington Post. It offers journalism, a blend of traditional reporting, and multimedia content that provides depth and texture to breaking stories as well as features, plus ways for readers to engage with the site, its capabilities and content. One of four online properties published by washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, washingtonpost.com is the recipient of the first-ever Emmy for original video journalism online and has won numerous other awards, including an EPpy Award for Best Overall Newspaper-Affiliated Site, several Digital Edge Awards, a 2007 National Journalism Award for Web Reporting, National Press Photographers’ Association Best of Photojournalism Award, and three consecutive Edward R. Murrow Awards for Overall Excellence for Non-Broadcast Affiliated Website, among others. According to the 2007 Project for Excellence in Journalism, washingtonpost.com is a ”High Achiever” as an online news site, earning strong marks in terms of branding, content customization, multimedia and user participation.
Slate Magazine is an award-winning web site that offers news and entertainment coverage. Slate won the 2006 and 2005 EPpy awards for Best Internet News Service (over 1 million monthly visitors) and the 2005 EPpy award for Best Internet Entertainment Service (over 1 million monthly visitors). Slate is owned by The Washington Post Company. Slate attracts over five million unique visitors each month.
Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive (WPNI) is the online publishing subsidiary of The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO). Its mission is to create truly interactive platforms that offer unmatched user experiences by developing editorial products with world-class reporting, multimedia features and award-winning content. WPNI’s news and information sites, which include washingtonpost.com, Slate, Newsweek.com and Budget Travel Online, inform and encourage conversation and debate while reaching millions of unique and active users each month. WPNI properties’ long lists of awards include the first-ever Emmy for original video journalism online awarded to washingtonpost.com, as well as National Journalism Awards, Pictures of the Year International Award, several Digital Edge Awards, multiple Edward R. Murrow Awards and White House New Photographer’s Association Awards, among others. The company is headquartered in Arlington, VA. Facebook(R) is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.
Founded in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook was developed so that people could better understand the world around them by developing technologies that facilitate the spread of information through social networks. The site has nearly 19 million active users in over 47,000 geographic, work-related, collegiate, and high school networks, and according to ComScore’s MediaMetrix report, Facebook ranks as the sixth-most trafficked site in the United States. Facebook is privately held and headquartered in Palo Alto, California.
To learn more about Slate, please visit: www.slate.com.
For more information about Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, please visit: www.washingtonpost.com.
To learn more about Facebook, please visit: www.facebook.com.
