by Keith Staines

Created on: January 04, 2009

Best website of 2008? Well Helium.com of course! Thank you very much!

Okay, not really. Yes, I think that Helium is a great site and all, but that's too easy. I can't go that route, sorry.

To me, the best website of 2008 doesn't take home the title belt because it was overly innovative, because it's a thing of beauty to look at, or because it makes the world a happier place. Honestly, the fact that it is the website of the year has as much, if not more to do with simple circumstance as it does with the actual quality of the website itself.

CNN.com.

Why, you might ask? Simple. The 2008 presidential election. Without this, CNN would have been nothing more than a common news site. Barack Obama was an answered prayer for the website. They milked the presidential election for every single ounce that they could get out of it. I frankly have no idea what they are going to do for 2009, but luckily this is about the year 2008.

Right from the initial primaries in Iowa back in January, through Super Tuesday in February, to the end of the primaries and the party conventions, the debacle that was Sarah Palin, the debates, the historic election night, the cabinet announcements, and winding up with the absurdity that is the Blagojevich scandal, CNN.com was the site to check multiple times a day.

CNN.com gave you everything you needed during the primary season, on both the Republican and Democrat side. Previews, exit polls, instant results with extremely useful data representation. They went beyond giving you the simple number of votes cast by breaking down by county which allowed you to see how the numbers could change later in the evening, depending on where the votes had already been counted from. The best part is they never had to deal with the debacle of calling a state wrong for someone during the night.

There were times during the end of the primaries, when Obama's nomination seemed inevitable that is seemed like CNN was trying to play up Hillary Clinton's chances, if for no other reason than to keep people's interest in the site and tv network. And after the primaries were over, there was a definite lull throughout the summer. Then things really revved up after the conventions, especially with the nomination of Sarah Palin as McCain's vice president nominee.

I can't remember how many times I would refresh their political ticker page during the day. They would throw up small tidbits of the latest information, and links to other interesting sites and articles discussing the

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