Business students create website to inform voters
A new website called PoliticIt.com could change the way voters and candidates approach elections by providing detailed information designers claim is straightforward, balanced and unique to the Internet.
The website, created by students and alumni from the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business, uses a new method to gather and analyze all online information about a candidate. The data and a cumulative score — or “It Score” — for each candidate is then presented online.
“It’s kind of a heartbeat for each campaign,” said Sterling Morris, a graduate student studying management information systems.
Because PoliticIt draws from all online information and focuses on presenting the data and the It Score, Morris said it can be free from spin or bias.
“It is driven by statistics and data. We present this to people so they can make their decisions,” said Josh Light, a finance graduate student, economics and entrepreneurship. “We make sure we write about everyone. We show everyone’s data and put it together. We don’t write opinion, and we just provide data.”
PoliticIt is unique in its ability to collect political data and provide real time results, said Brian Steed, a grant writer for the Business School who also teaches in the political science department.
“There’s nothing like it out there right now,” he said. “I think its a novel approach to a problem facing all political campaigns, how to gauge real-time public sentiment on candidates and issues.”
PoliticIt’s approach to election data has a broad appeal, said Dave Patel, assistant dean of Career and Student Services and director of executive outreach at the business school.
“I think it serves the needs of both casual users and people who are steeped in politics because it brings everything together,” he said.
Beyond mainstream media and news outlets, PoliticIt includes data from social networks and other forms of new media, said Britney Johnson, who recently graduated with a degree in management information systems.
“Our real goal was to bring every source of media together,” Patel said.
In addition to compiling all of the online information about a candidate in one place, Light said the It Score for each candidate allows the site to provide real-time polling and the ability to predict traditional polls that are published weeks after they were conducted.
“It includes all of the information publicly available, mainstream and social media, and it is a neutral venue, that’s the big strength,” said.
The website also allows viewers to see specific events and their impact on campaigns. Morris said users would have seen Rick Perry’s score drop during a recent debate or how Herman Cain’s score was impacted by the release of a new campaign ad and the onset of sexual harassment claims.
Members of the PoliticIt team share the consensus that in the past media have decided who won debates, which is part of why the group came together to work on the project.
“The upside potential of this is huge, it provides real-time data to both candidates and the general population,” Steed said. “I think that people are willing to pay a lot for quality political data — how trends are happening. It could potentially be worth a lot.”
Using a recent debate as an example, Light said news media chose Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich as winners, while PoliticIt data showed Ron Paul and Mitt Romney gaining more momentum from the debate.
The site currently displays the candidates for the 2012 presidential election. Morris said over time he wants to incorporate senatorial races, congressional races and eventually state and local elections to the site. Light said the site could even go worldwide.
Light also said they plan to create a membership where candidates can pay to dig deeper into the data. This could also include the ability for the candidate to manage their social media and online presence in one location.
“The media is becoming decentralized because of the Internet,” Light said. “Media used to have a lot of control over people’s opinions. PoliticIt makes the democratic process a lot better.”
Patel said the group is planning to enter its website in the Microsoft Worldwide Imagine Cup competition. He said last year several of the students involved in PoliticIt took second place out of more than 20,000 entries.
“Students came up with the idea,” Patel said. “They wrote the code, they did the design for it. That’s a testament to our students and their entrepreneurship.”
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