Presidential Campaign Widgets and Matchmakers: Let the Social Web Election Fun Begin!

Did you know that as of this writing, Hilary Clinton has raised $63,075,926, Barack Obama has raised $58,913,134 and Mitt Romney has raised $44,432,349? Mike Gravel, on the other hand, has raised $238,744.




You can see and share these astounding figures with MAPLight's Presidential Fundraising Widget, which can be placed on your blog or web site.

In addition to launching the widget, MAPLight.org has published an API (application programming interface) that makes it easy for any Web developer to build their own site, or software program, that displays or shares up-to-date campaign contributions from the FEC (Federal Elections Commission).

The widget is funded by the $25,000 first prize NetSquared Innovation Award that MAPLight.org received at the NetSquared Conference (N2Y2), and by the Sunlight Foundation.

By September 15th, MAPLight.org plans to release a widget for U.S. Congress, showing total campaign contributions for each candidate for Congress. By September 30, MAPLight.org will release its "Money and Votes" widget, revealing correlations between campaign contributions and votes for any bill in U.S. Congress.

To be notified when MAPLight.org releases these widgets, visit www.maplight.org/participate/signup.

On a lighter note, as I mentioned last week, Change.org launched a Presidental Matchmaker tool last week that shows you which candidates' views match yours the most closely. You can take a 20 question quiz where you rate how strongly you support or oppose issues, and it matches you with a presidential candidate. (You need to create a Change.org login and password to see the results).

Full disclosure: I work for NetSquared.

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