On April 1st, 2006 at 1400 in Room Q119 in the Helix on the DCU campus in Glasnevin, Tom Duke of Technofutures told wide-eyed Labour groupies about how the Internet is going to be BIG for campaigning. This was no joke, this wasn’t a prank. This was the Internet. Serious business.
According to the Indo Tom told the crowd about the benefits of the world wide net:
The number of voters with internet access and changing population and housing patterns makes the internet a crucial campaign tool, he believes.
“As you’re getting closer to the election, the number of hits on the websites does increase as people go looking for the specific information they are seeking,” he said.
Fantastic. Did anyone else notice this phenomenon where, if something is in the news, people will look it up (also known as Googling to the technonerdwebheads) more than they normally do?
Tom Duke who hasn’t a blog or a findable one at least, said webdiaryNetblogging is also going to be BIG:
“We’re not at the same stage as the US just yet. The whole blog [internet diaries] thing is a big social phenomenon. The US does show what it will be like and blogs will become more important here,” he said.
Of course I’m being facetious because I’ve been working on a top secret Internet plan for the upcoming Irish Election myself. (Hi Cian!) All I need is a blog, motivation and a copy of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and I too can create an Internet plan. Er no, not quite. In reality I have been monitoring the way the various parties work online and work with their koolaid drinkers online. It’s dire to say the least. Labour doesn’t have anything close to a good, workable website though Fine Gael in fairness beats them to having one that’s a total piece of shit. Most parties don’t get the net at all and it is reflected in their policies on communications and technology. I have yet to see any party with a policy on blogging and interacting online. How many TDs post to discussion forums? Liz McManus has a blog and fair play to her but why is she the blogging maverick of Labour? Shouldn’t it be the norm by now?
Some tips for Labour and the other parties:
RSS. Where are the feeds on ALL your websites?
Make sure all the websites are accessible. This means the W3 test and the Bobby test.
Where are the leaders blogs?
Where are the aggregators for all the Labour TDs?
Discussion forums?
There’s 5 free tips that will improve your rankings and transparency online. For tips on how to win new supporters and get more votes you can pay me to tell you.
Fact: all the ministers or shadow ministers ego-surf routinely. Changing the title of this post to something like “Liz McManus Should Read This” will put these cogent thoughts in the middle of the pre-election radar scope. At the moment, I’m being belted by information hoovers because I took Michael McDowell as a title to a post during the weekend. The beehive effect is quite remarkable. From the way it looks, the information hoovered is parceled inside of e-mail alerts to the subscribing politician. Now you know that they know you know they know what you’re saying about them.
They don’t do it at all properly and I bet they farm the work out to the likes of a clipping service who also monitor the airwaves for anything that is relevant to the Minister. I’ve seen them do this. I’d love to do an FOI on how much is payed to clipping services each year.
Labour seems to be the only one that has a syndicated feed..