By: Sarah Kessler
Google will officially announce its online information hub for political elections on Monday, a day before the Iowa Caucuses. It is the first website Google has dedicated exclusively to elections.
The new website has both Egyptian and U.S. editions. Google will post content from the later version on a large screens throughout the Media Filing Center at the Iowa Caucuses on Tuesday.
That information includes news articles sorted by candidate and issue, links to voter resources such as the political calendar and YouTube politics channel and a trends dashboard that shows search trends, news mentions and YouTube views for each candidate.
“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,” a Google spokesperson wrote in a statement to Mashable.
Google’s offline presence in Iowa will extend beyond its display of its online resources. From a sponsored section of the Filing Center, it will conduct live hangouts with journalists who are covering the 2012 elections. The company is also serving them food from local restaurants.
Surrounded by media and politics, Google will be quite at home at the Filing Center. According to Pew, the company is the biggest driver of traffic to top news sites. It’s also taken steps toward becoming not just a referrer, but a destination for political information with campaign tools, a dedicated YouTube channel and virtual town halls.
Will you be heading to Google’s new election site to learn about candidates in the 2012 election, or will you navigate directly to more traditional sources?
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