Charles Franklin is the co-developer of Pollster.com, a website that provides expert nonpartisan analysis of polling data for political insiders as well as the general public. “This move gives us a place in the Huffington Post that attracts very large traffic and audience and also will provide us an opportunity to expand the depth of the coverage and especially the technology behind it.”
The political science professor at U-W Madison notes that the online aggregator of polling data has been around since 2006. This purchase by the popular Huffington Post comes just in time for the midterm elections in November. “The best thing from my point of view is that it means I’ll be spending time on analysis, but not have to deal with any of the technical details.” Franklin says his partner, Mark Blumenthal, will be the primary person there.
Franklin says the merger highlights the trend in new media and the role of blogs … at a time of huge competition among the media. In addition to continuing to provide analysis at Pollster.com, Franklin will focus his development work to a new sight: PollsAndVotes.com. Since its launch in September 2006, Pollster.com has attracted nearly seven million unique visits resulting in over 30 million page views, according to that website.