When journalists and politicians converge in Los Angeles for the  Democratic National Convention on Aug. 14, they'll encounter 90 kiosks scattered through hotels and the Staples Center that detail the latest platform votes, city information, and other tidbits.

The kiosks come courtesy of a 10-month-old company called Voter.com, which is mounting a similar, if smaller, effort for the  Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. The startup is one of a handful of politics-specific Web sites, including  Grassroots.com,  SpeakOut.com, and  Politics.com, that is gearing up to cover the conventions.

As both traditional and new media grapple with the question of how to make the heavily scripted conventions interesting, these politics-only sites hope to set themselves apart by taking the convention directly to the people.

They'll let Web viewers from around the country share their gripes online about a candidate's speech, register their opinions in polls, and even interrupt an online video interview when they think a politician has pontificated too long.

Watching how these political Web sites perform might prove more interesting than the conventions themselves. And more telling. That's because for some political sites a good showing at the conventions could be the difference between staying in business or joining the expanding dot-com graveyard.

Politics.com, the only publicly traded political Web site, seemed in particular trouble. In its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the site reported "a severe working capital deficiency"—only $134,499 in cash—and "significant losses"—a $6.68 million deficit.

Politics.com had been relying on advertising revenues, but last week, the company announced a stock deal with  Votenet, a division of  Netivation.com. In its second acquisition in the online politics arena this year, Netivation will receive 80 percent ownership in Politics.com, while Politics.com will gain a much needed revenue base. Votenet develops Web sites, sells political supplies and provides online fund raising and other services. Votenet's customers have included  U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, the  Democratic Party of Arkansas, and the  California Republican Veterans of America.

Some of Politics.com's competitors say they're surviving by selling online pollster services and other political tools that they'll be putting to work during the conventions.

SpeakOut.com has a partnership with MSNBC to debut its patent-pending "Ntercept" technology at the convention. Ntercept is an online political mood meter that will enable surfers, for example, to rank a speech on a scale of 0 to100 by moving a bar up and down the meter with their mouse.

"In the past, we were all couch potatoes sitting back basically having to absorb the [television] convention coverage as dogma," says Joshua King, SpeakOut's vice president of national affairs and a White House "image meister" from 1993-97. "It shouldn't be left only to the pundits to analyze and give feedback to how these politicians are speaking."