NEW YORK: George W. Bush may be leading in the presidential opinion polls, but his Internet presence has been ranked second-to-last in a PRWeek report on the web sites of the leading candidates.
NEW YORK: George W. Bush may be leading in the presidential opinion
polls, but his Internet presence has been ranked second-to-last in a
PRWeek report on the web sites of the leading candidates.
Bill Bradley’s site was judged to be the best, trumping the site of his
Democratic Party rival Al Gore - the self-appointed ’inventor of the
Internet.’
Adding insult to injury, Bush’s site ranked behind those of Republican
rivals John McCain and Steve Forbes. Only Reform Party candidate Pat
Buchanan fared worse.
The report judged the web sites on seven criteria: ease of use, design,
interactivity, timeliness, content/features, effectiveness and message
delivery.
In each category, Bradley’s site was ranked well above average. As well
as winning outright, www.billbradley.com was voted easiest to use and
judged to have the best message delivery, a category which evaluates the
extent to which the site successfully represents the candidate’s key
messages and general image.
Gore’s site came in first or tied for the top slot in no less than four
categories - design, interactivity, content/features and effectiveness -
but was undercut by its poor message delivery and lack of
timeliness.
McCain’s site, in addition to receiving kudos for its design, was
described by one judge as ’that rare thing: a site that makes you
actually like the candidate.’
Forbes was given high marks for timeliness and wealth of features, but
his site was criticized for having emphasized technical virtuosity over
content.
As for the Bush site, it was deemed middle-of-the-road in almost every
respect. ’It looks like the site of a candidate who feels he doesn’t
have to try too hard,’ quipped one of the judges.
Editorial, p12
The Internet election, p20
Whose web site is the best?
Ease of Design* Inter- Timeli-
use* activity* ness
Bradley 9 6 7 8
Gore 6 7 9 4
McCain 8 7 3 4
Forbes 4 6 8 9
Bush 7 6 4 6
Buchanan 6 3 3 6
Content/ Effective- Message TOTAL
features* ness** delivery**
Bradley 8 16 19 73
Gore 9 20 10 65
McCain 5 17 16 60
Forbes 9 14 9 59
Bush 5 11 16 55
Buchanan 2 8 10 38
Source: PRWeek
*marks out of 10
**marks out of 25
