Media firms log on to cyberspace to woo young voters

Media firms are now logging on to the Internet to cash in on the election fever that has gripped the country, with an eye mainly on young voters.

Firms like Orkut, NDTV and Yahoo have come up with platforms to help youngsters raise the concerns that they think should reach the politicians, apart from providing information about candidates and constituencies.

Social networking site Orkut on its part has launched a community 'Voice of Youth' featuring polls with questions like "Who is the most non-corrupt politician?", "Who is the most good-looking politician?", "What's the most important issue facing the country?" or "Can a celebrity influence your vote?".

"Orkut has over 1,000 political communities in India and we wanted to increase our engagement with the audience. Within four days of launch, we have seen 729 users becoming members, but the number of participants remains higher," Google India product manager Vihari Komaragiri said.

News channel NDTV's online arm, NDTV Convergence for example has launched a website featuring 'Virtual election', which allows the user float his own political party with personal agenda and also make a speech.

"With a vast range of specialised content available on the website, the surfer is able to get a comprehensive picture of Indian elections," NDTV Convergence chief executive officer Sanjay Trehan said.

"Surely, there is a revenue upside, as we are serving both banner and video ads on the elections microsite as increase in inventory means more revenue," he added.

With the Internet emerging as an important medium for interaction and debate among voters, search engines Google and Yahoo! have also set up portals offering election news.

Yahoo offers a tool called "Your Manifesto", which allows users to select issues of importance that let politicians know what interests them, while Google has partnered with NGOs and Hindustan Times to offer voters confirm their voter registration status, find their polling location and view their constituency on a map.

Digital maps and GPS solutions firm MapmyIndia has launched an election portal to help voters view their constituency, track record of politicians, area, population and literacy ratio apart from participating in online discussions.

Successful campaigns by the corporate in the past include Tata Tea's Jaago Re! and Times of India's Lead India, which have caught the voter's eye apart from campaigns by NGOs such as VoteIndia and Let's Vote.