PopRule: Social News for Politics
If you’re a political junkie or pundit, raise your hand. I would, but I’m typing.
Recently, I stumbled onto Poprule and was amazed. Here is a forum where political commentators, news junkies, and such all come together to share their finds and ideas. It’s sort of like VOIS.com, but with a focus on politics and no commercial activity (or at least, not much).
In true Digg style, users share stories, links, etc. and others can Pop them (vote them up). PopRule’s tagline is “all politics is social,” which sums up the idea well. All submissions are categorized into categories, with the broad subjects list including national, international, opinion, and humor.
Each state also has its own category, so local news can be posted as local. Categories that receive multiple submissions from various users in a given amount of time become “trendy” and are featured as a current social/political trend. Those which are Popped into fame become “Popular” and featured.
Popularity is measured in stages, with those early on gaining a foothold in their category and then building up through stages until they reach the pinnacle—the front page of PopRule. These are generally only stories of national interest or extremely controversial subject matter. Usually both.
There are a lot of other tools and uses for this site and for the political junkie who prefers real news reporting to mainstream. This is a fun site, but one caveat: it’s highly addicting. Be prepared to spend a lot of time there your first few visits. Sort of like you did at Facebook and Digg when you first signed up with them, if you can remember back that far.
