NYTIMES.COM
Catherine Mitseas, 5:05 p.m.: The NY Times Web site is beautiful to look at but I quickly became frustrated. There were multiple stories on the presidential race, House and Senate, governor's races and stories from A.P., but all the national election stories were posted two and half hours ago. Associated Press had the most recent one and it was simply a summary of the race. "Campaigns End; Now Voters Have Their Say," was NYT's latest story at 3:09 and again it was nothing more than a summary. The story can be found here.

I kept wanting to find information that would bring me to the candidate right now. Instead, the photo gallery included dry pictures of candidates on the campaign trail and old shots of Super Tuesday. The live and recorded video section was segmented into a small pop-up box. The photo resolution was fuzzy and there was no way to enlarge the picture. Even the "Political Points ABCNEWS.com's" message boards were last updated at 12.30 PM.

Even the live discussion with op-ed columnist Gail Collins did not start until 9 p.m. Overall, what seemed to be promising turned out to be pretty silly.

WASHINGTONPOST.COM
Stephanie Berger, 5:06 p.m.: When I surfed washingtonpost.com, I was looking for something different from what I would find in the newspaper. Not sure why "Final Polls Show Toss-Up" was the first link I followed -- biggest headline, I guess. It didn't strike me as the "something different" I craved, so I quickly clicked "Back." I spent 28 minutes following links, noticing the structure of the Complete Story Archive. Different than print newspaper, yes -- but I still wanted more. In my 36th minute, I found -- in the purple sidebar on the Elections 2000 page -- the live chats scheduled throughout the day. Now THAT was different. I wish I'd seen the chats right off the top. See how quickly you can find the link from the top page.

Berger: Hey Catherine. Wow: Colors *are* gorgeous. I also relate to your frustration about the timing of the coverage. Maybe because it's the Net we expect coverage to be constantly updated, up-to-the-minute. I'm thinking print routines probably have some influence.

Makes me wonder if we'll see online newspapers doing real-time coverage any time soon.

Mitseas, 5:13 pm: Stephanie, I could not find live chats at all. I found live online, but they were scheduled discussions. Pretty good I guess. I liked Washington Post's interesting angles, like who will concede and what will they say. It's a busy site.

Mitseas, 5:27: Stephanie, I suppose there is a difficulty with continuous coverage. After all, the presidential candidates probably do not want every reporter from every news service hanging out with them during their big wait. However, the Times could learn a bit from The Washington Post. It could offer more current photos, better reaction coverage and some level of interaction, perhaps "the man on the street" scenario.

Berger, 5:41: Hey there. Looks like you found the page I was talking about -- I can't figure out why I didn't catch it sooner. Anyway, I got a kick out of seeing what was on people's minds the day of the election. Thanks for pointing me to the projected concession speeches!

NYTIMES.COM
Mitseas, 7:07 p.m.: I really want to say something nice about the NYT times interactivity. However, there seemed to be only three segments that were remotely designed to include the online user. The site regularly posted the US presidential electoral votes, along with the numbers for the House and Senate and local races in the NY/NJ area in their "result," bar on the right side of the screen.

Second, they have a chat segment which is elusive and difficult to find.

The most promising interactive section was NYT's Abuzz. Unfortunately, at 20 minutes to 7 PM on election night, the site's server must have been down because I only got "page unavailable."

WASHINGTONPOST.COM
Berger, 7:00 p.m.: So far, the most interactivity I see on washingtonpost.com is in the chat area. There is lots of multimedia to look at, but the site must be busy. I wasn't able to watch the videos I just tried.

You should know that my picture of interactivity is one in which I can see the Web site connecting with people, as the chat transcripts let me to do. I can't see people in their homes reacting to the videos, or share my reaction to that same video with them, but I can read a chat trail and respond to the same issue.

BTW, now that I'm actually looking *under* the front page photo, I see the Live Online chats ARE linked off the top!

Ooh, it's 6:31 and I'm surfing as I write -- I just reloaded the 6:30 update. Pretty exciting to "reload" and see a drastic change ... it made me feel "connected" somehow to the events of the evening. At 6:51, I'm still unable to connect to the server to watch a video. But I'm going to play with this interactive map. What do you think about it?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/onpolitics/
elections/2000/results/whitehouse/front.htm

Mitseas, 7:30: Chat rooms reminds of a bunch of people shouting in a room where no one is listening. That said, Abuzz is definitely the most interactive and probably interesting part of this site. I hope I did not miss anything. Web sites can really bury content.

Mitseas, 7:05 pm: The map was ok. I liked it. What type of information about the race did the chat rooms tell you? Any trends?

Berger, 7:48:Yes, I see your point about live chats. I do believe the transcripts are valuable, though -- as a record of what the public is thinking, or "shouting" about.

Berger, 7:35: The transcripts showed me people have lots of questions. I read from people who asked about election day procedures, Nader, media coverage. Tell you the truth -- I haven't noticed any trends. Buzzing around the Web with the TV on ... it's kind of hard to analyze all that's pouring in :)

Top
3. How is the site using writing to tell the story?

NYTIMES.COM
Mitseas, 9:07 p.m.:The copy on the NYT Web site has remained largely unchanged in the last six hours. The story listed below seems to be NYT's leader. It may have been updated throughout the day, but it still simply speaks of what a tight race this has become. In addition, the copy seems to go on and on, meandering through Clinton's influence on Gore, to how Florida is not a shoe-in for Bush to where Gore and Tipper plan to go for the evening. This story could use a few subheads and formatting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/07/
politics/08CND-CAMP.html

The left side bar link "Political Points" offers two informational sections, "Region by Region" and "Race to 270." Region by Region offered reasonable vignettes of each state's position within the presidential campaign. They were easy to read and pretty short, about 200 words. Political Points allows the viewer to point to a state and learn the electoral information about the candidate. Unfortunately little of the information on this site was truly current.

Check out the video attached. Notice the results segment on the right lower side of the screen. It still says Bush has 80 votes, although at 9:04 PM, Bush secured 192.

I found the stories on NYT very traditional and similar to what you would find in a newspaper. That may seem like a huge Duh!, but I expected more from the country's leading daily.

WASHINGTONPOST.COM
Berger, 8:14 p.m.:

washingtonpost.com has 5 pull-down menus where you can access election results:

• State Summaries
• Presidential Results
  
• Senate Races
  
• House Races
  
• Governor Races

The site uses very few words to link you to this info. I like the instant access these pull-down menus give you.

Right now (8:07), the electoral votes posted on the front page aren't matching up with what I hear on the TV (CNN). The site is charting the network elections, though.

Berger, 9:32 p.m.:I checked out the article. I agree that subheds would help make the text easier to scan. However, I have to say -- the paragraphs are short enough for easy reading.

I also checked out the attachment: What was your source for the 192 at 9:04? I'm assuming CNN -- is that right? Based on all we've seen with the Web tonight, I've learned not to expect real-time results from the newspapers this time around. Yet, I think it's good that they appear to be "writing" the results carefully. The Net has that "rumor-mill" reputation. Tonight's coverage on the Post and NYT boosts my faith in the Net.

Berger, 8:34 p.m.:I agree! I wonder how many people are also multi-tasking ...

Naturally, Web sites have to consider that people multi-task. That's one reason the chart of networks' calls on the election is a great idea -- it's an example of writing on the Web that gives me context I can't get anywhere else.

Mitseas, 9:17 pm: I suppose we are experiencing history here. This is probably the first time the US population has used the Internet to collectively follow the elections. I know, as the techies in the room are quickly reminding me, the Internet has been around for quite a while. However, how many people can say that their moms, aunts and children were also logged on in 1996?

In fact, we are probably being too harsh on these sites. Television has had 50 or more years to refine their techniques. The Web is still figuring out and they are doing without a uniform platform. My computer may be slower than yours. Your computer may have better resolution.

I am sure these sites will get better and better. In regards to the chart, it is interesting that the Web turned to television to help keep track of the election.

When I think of writing online, I think of untapped possibilities. I believe it's important to talk about what the sites could do better. I'm glad I discovered that TV chat on the Post site -- it's a clear example of good stuff to come.

Thank you for this exchange.