Tuesday, July 25th, 2006...12:05 pm
“Pop-Up Politicians”
I just picked this item up from Josh Marshall’s excellent Talking Points Memo blog. The folks at Sunlight Foundation have developed a new tool, what they refer to as a “widget,” that bloggers can use on their pages called “Pop-Up Politician.” This “widget” will appear on my page as a sun icon following the name of a member of congress. The icon can be rolled over to give a capsule of information on the member, and will include links to further information such as funding and votes.
For example, if I post the names of our two Southern Arizona Congressmen, Rep. Raúl Grijalva and Rep. Jim Kolbe, you see the “sun” icon and you can get a pop-up of information about either one by passing the mouse over it.
I suppose I could have a field day and put others up, such as Rep. Rodney P. Frelinghuysen, Rep. Gene Taylor or even Del. Eni F. H. Faleomavaega. There is, as yet, no way to do something similar with congressional candidates or ex-members.
Both TPM and Sunlight Labs have details about how to use this tool on your own blog.
NB - Apparently, there is no love for the non-voting congressional delegates, and you can’t “pop-up” Eni Faleomavaega. Darn.
If the pop-ups become irritating, y’all write me and I’ll stop using them.
4 Comments
July 25th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
That is truly geekalicious!
July 25th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
Wow! I just had a dorkasm! … a blogasm?
Ummm — maybe I will regret this comment.
July 25th, 2006 at 6:37 pm
Fred, is that you?
July 27th, 2006 at 8:01 am
I love it, but it looks like a bit too much work for my blog. If they ever come up with a way to make the names automatically “highlight”, like those annoying double-underlined links you see on some pages, I would be all over that.
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