By

Jared Colby

New generation grassroots political editorial and social network gathers attention

As sparks continue to fly on the political stage during this eventful primary season, the cyber world of the pundit blogosphere is pulsing with activity following every debate, election and every piece of gossip. In the past two years, the politicized internet has been dominated by blog sites such as Dailykos.com, popular with the Liberal crowd, and Townhall.com which serves the needs of the Conservative blogger. Other large budget news blogs such as Politico.com and Huffingtonpost.com also cast a long shadow over their share of the blogosphere.

It is in this shadow that a small but tenacious grassroots blog seeks to stake a claim. Polzoo.com bills itself as ‘a social networking center for political participation, debate and action’. Despite a long winded and seemingly banal self-description, the site itself actually offers quite a bit of entertainment for your average political junkie. Launched in early February of 2008, owner Frederick Kuo envisioned a non-partisan site where bloggers of all stripes and colors can come together to discuss and debate issues. “I wanted to combine the traditional online political editorial and blog with the functions of myspace”, says Kuo, a local Sacramento crepe shop owner, enthusiastically of the project. Despite only being in operation for a mere three weeks, Polzoo already has a group of regular contributors who act as featured columnists on the front page. True to form, the political affiliations are divided evenly between three liberals, three conservatives and one independent. The featured columnists were hand picked from the blogosphere by Kuo who reveals, “I was looking for columnists who represented the average joe, rather than those who already had connections… and they also needed to be passionate”. And passionate they are, already some blogs have generated fiery reactions from other members. In response to a liberal columnist who writes that adherence to diversity was what historically made America great, a conservative member argues the opposite and charges “and the Liberals keep fiddling while Rome burns… they were the ones who let the Huns in”.

Free advertising for social causes

In addition to being a full fledged grassroots political blog and social networking site, Polzoo has also begun a program to help non-profit organizations by permanently giving free advertising on the front page for a different cause on a weekly basis. “My goal was to use this site not only to spur political thought and debate, but also to allow important social issues of our day to gain greater exposure”, says Kuo of the Polzoo non-profit organization program. Although clearly, no organization has yet to apply, the program statement advises organizations to submit their banners to be featured and to create a blog detailing the importance of the cause they are involved in.

Navigating throughout the site, I found the setup intuitive and easy to use. However, it is clear that as a young site, there are still a few kinks here and there to work out. The profile function could be refined a bit more in order to create an easier flow for those who want to surf portfolios. The private messaging system is not very intuitive, and could be integrated better with the community database. I am told, however, that these bugs are to be worked out in the coming months as the site continues to grow. “I am focusing on providing quality content and substance first, and then everything will come together”, asserts Kuo confidently on the direction of the site.

So have you had your ‘Polzoo’ today? Perhaps not, but as interest in this grassroots political site grows, growing numbers of individuals will increasingly have Polzoo with their morning coffee.