Peter Sinclair: US election neck and neck at the websites

By PETER SINCLAIR

Across America the drums are rolling and the balloon industry has never had it so good.

The riotous red-white-and-blue phenomenon occurs when sanctimony, vaudeville and cash are combined in equal parts. In other words, a US election.

As the air-pumping ballyhoo of their national conventions subsides, the Republican and Democratic parties are rolling up their sleeves online for the hard financial slog of actually making it up Pennsylvania Ave.

And slog it will be, if a new Media Metrix report is anything to go by: during their respective conventions, the Republican website scored only 392,000 unique visitors and the Democrats' just 201,000.

An interesting straw in the wind may be that while traffic to political-news sites sagged during the Grand Old Party's yawn-fest, they grew significantly during the Democratic nominations - from C-Span to the Drudge Report, all recorded gains of up to 165 per cent.

God knows why. At both www.algore.com and www.georgewbush.com you'll find an almost identical shrink-wrapped self-interest. The only real point of difference is that George W's pop-ups, like George W. himself, are slightly more irritating.

Washington, like Wellington, is really just a sandpit.

As "nyah nyah nyah!" echoes across the playground, a maternal US State Department referees the squabbles at www.usinfo.lstate.gov/topical/rights/elect2000.

The two parties' national websites are just indignant mirror-images of each other.

Where the GOP cries: "Al Gore should explain why his administration is making it 'impossible' for states to create better programmes to insure more children", the Democratic National Committee ripostes: "Federal Judge Orders Bush's Texas To Fix Failed Children's Health System".

The only significant difference between the two is that the GOP 'Donate' button flashes while the Democrats' doesn't.

Also, the Republican site has a slightly nastier edge, eg "The Gore Files: Anything to get Elected", illustrated with a villainous photo of Al looking like Hannibal Lecter about to dine, though this ice seems a bit thin when your own candidate is George W. Bush.

Still, unlike the Democrats, the GOP has its online store up and running: desktop items, jewellery, ties, tote-bags, bed linen - though I don't know that even a diehard Republican head would lie easy on an embroidered version of the rather lumpen elephant featured on all of the above.

But then Republicans seem born to shop.

The California branch of the party has even done a deal with ebates.com, an online shopping portal which pays people to shop.

Ebates gets commissions from its participating stores by passing shoppers along to them, returning some of this to the shoppers themselves. RepublicanShopping works in much the same way, except that the refunds go straight to the California Republican Party for its own fell purposes.

I wonder if Eric Watson should put in a call to Jenny?

A sudden wave of well-heeled Nat shoppers is just what FlyingPig could use.

Bookmarks:

MOST DUTY-FREE: airportshoppers

On-line from Auckland Airport, an easy way for family and friends to ensure you return from that overseas trip laden like an Afghan camel.

If you need help with your navigation, use their new Callback service.

Advisory: monthly $1000 shopping vouchers through November.

Lies, Damned Lies:

Surfers, arise! California, the American state with the highest percentage of wired citizens, has legislated to tax online transactions.

Whether the Governor will sign the bill into law remains to be seen.

Even the Board of Equalisation, which would collect the cash, says that it should be vetoed.

It would raise about $US14 million ($33 million), compared with the $22 billion the state currently reaps from a 7.25 per cent bricks-and-mortar sales tax.

A hit or a miss?: In what some see as a music industry plot, Universal Music is refusing to reach agreement with MP3.com now the rest of its co-litigators have reached hefty out-of-court settlements.

The case hinges on whether the online music retailer "wilfully" infringed Universal's copyrights. If so, it would be liable for up to $US150,000 for each CD.

It made 80,000 available, and if only 20 per cent were Universal's, that's $2 billion. Uh-oh ...

So what are they grizzling about? Meantime, sales of United States music CDs reached an all-time high in the first half of this year - 420 million, up 6 per cent from last year.

The Recording Industry Association of America says CDs make up 86 per cent of a music market whose total value climbed 10 per cent to $US5.7 billion.

Dailies make a dollar: Fifty per cent of North American newspaper websites are profitable or at least breaking even, says the Newspaper Association of America.

Thirty per cent of the newspaper sites score more than 50,000 surfers each a week.

Acceleration: Eighty-three per cent of United States new-vehicle dealers now have a website, up from 74 per cent last year, says the US National Automobile Dealers Association.

Sixty-two per cent have made sales online. They average five new sales a month from internet leads.

Links:

Media Metrix

C-Span

Drudge

www.algore.com

www.georgewbush.com

www.usinfo.lstate.gov/topical/rights/elect2000

GOP

ebates.com

RepublicanShopping

California Republican Party

FlyingPig

AirportShoppers

Board of Equalisation

Recording Industry of America

Newspaper Association of America

US National Automobile Dealers Association

E-mail: petersinclair@email.com