THE Jamaica Observer website – www.jamaicaobserver.com – was the only website that provided live election results for each of the 60 constituencies throughout election night, September 3, 2007.

For the election site, the online newspaper had more than 100,000 pageviews on the night of the election into the following morning.

“On election day, the total number of visitors was 54 per cent higher than our year-to-date average and it was 72 per cent higher than the average on the morning after the election,” Dean Knight, Observer information technology manager reported.

“Despite a few minor challenges at the start of the vote count, we were the only website that provided live election results for each constituency throughout the night of the election,” said Knight, who is one of Jamaica’s top IT specialists.

The newspaper’s web application was developed totally in-house, relying on a feed from the Electoral Office of Jamaica’s information management system which was provided by the Mona Geoinformatics Institute at a cost of roughly $250,000.

“We also had an 85 per cent increase in the number of first-time visitors. The numbers are definitely encouraging, as we are constantly working to improve our ability to deliver content to our online readers,” Knight said.

“With new exciting web initiatives on the way, users can expect to see much more from the team at the Observer,” he added.