Continuing on from our earlier post we decided to have a quick look a more in-depth look at what the party are up to online. to find out what you may have been missing over the last few weeks. . .
After looking at each of the three main party web sites full marks go to the Liberal Democrats, for their kennedycampaign.org weblog (although we’ll keep schtum about their main site). Whilst not written by Charles Kennedy himself, the site makes no claim to be. A small team, led by James, the “Battlebus blogger", keep the site updated with posts and photographs. There’s an informal tone to the proceedings (with some great candid photographs that offer an alternative view on the campaign), and as well as allowing comments on their posts, the site staff have made an effort to engage with them and answer questions. It is updated practically daily, so if you fancy a slightly different look at a campaign on the move, we can highly recommend kennedycampaign.org.
The Conservatives fair less well; there is no mention of how their own campaign is going on their website apart from a few press photographs and non-specific news updates. They do show their slight digital awareness by having a page of blog links, but there is no personal flavour to the site other than this.
The Labour site is a little better (once you’ve got past the hideous “election pledge” splash screen), with a link to “Tony Blair’s campaign diary". Unfortunately, the last person that seems to have had any contribution to the diary is Tony himself - the prose is curiously detached and reads much like a press release. There’s also a tendency to put up “video diaries” when, as anyone who’s actually used the internet knows, plain text would be a lot better.
If this is the best the parties can do between them in 2005, though, it does make you wonder how well they will all do in 2009.