Here at ZATZ, we regularly experiment with new technologies, new basic algorithms, and new heuristics, all with the purpose of fielding useful, powerful, and original Web sites that provide tangible value to users.
About the ZDecade projects
ZATZ is currently working on AI (artificial intelligence)-based dynamic content analysis and editing technologies and has created a new technology we call the AI Editor. As a testbed for AI Editor-based sites, we've launched ZDecade, with our first site being Track Your Candidate. Stay tuned for our second experimental site, CrisisWatch, coming soon!
This is the decade when the Information Generation comes of age. We're building powerful information Web sites for a new generation and a new decade, the ZDecade!
About Track Your Candidate
Track Your Candidate is an experimental Web site designed with the intent to give you access to all of America’s national candidates, regardless of how well known they are. Track Your Candidate uses a revolutionary AI editor to determine which stories are worthy of coverage.
Every day, the site monitors news traffic across America, looking for coverage for all the candidates. Any coverge it finds is spotlighted on Track Your Candidate. Track Your Candidate is currently tracking 1,562 candidates across America with more than 12,000 articles, and adding about 100 new articles each day.
Every candidate has a "campaign headquarters" on Track Your Candidate. This page is where visitors can go to see all of the news we've ever gathered about the candidate, in reverse chronological order.
On the top of Track Your Candidate, we list pages containing all of the candidates for each party (including third parties), along with lists of candidates for each major seat.
The Story Behind Track Your Candidate
Track Your Candidate was created by author, computer scientist, and political analyst David Gewirtz.
He says, "I write a lot of political stuff, and early this summer I found myself looking for an online central repository with information about individual candidates. Sure, Wikipedia has a background description of the more prominent candidates, but what about news? You could go to Google News, Drudge, or Memeorandum and get the most recent news, but it was hard to see a river of news stream for specific, individual candidates.
Gewirtz continues, "This was an aha moment (more, actually, like a cranky, profanity-filled rant, looked on with the usual tolerant expression from my wife, but you get the idea). A couple of months of programming, a little R&D, a lot of chocolate, pizza, and coffee, and Track Your Candidate was born."
AuthorPower: the ZATZ authors' resource
The "secret sauce" that makes ZATZ magazines so valuable to our readers isn't our technology or our good looks. The ZATZ magazines are so very valuable to readers because the information we provide comes from leading experts and hands-on "doers" in the fields we write about.
ZATZ has more than 380 authors who have written thousands of articles. Early on, we realized it would be important to provide a central resource for our authors, and that's what AuthorPower is all about.
More than just writing guidelines, AuthorPower provides information to authors about our publishing standards, how -- exactly -- we rate products, and even formatting tricks and writing tips.
AuthorPower also provides useful information to the companies we profile, helping them understand how to submit news items for coverage, products for review, and even ways they can share their "on-the-ground" expertise solving challenging problems.