eDemocracy Update

PresidentialWatch08 - Visualising the US political blogosphere

PresidentialWatch08 is a really nifty website that represents all the US political blogs visually and organised by political persuasion.

I've not had a real play with it yet but you can zoom into the network and see which blogs link to others, get an idea of blog size/popularity (based on links) and see screenshots of the each site. Pretty damn cool.

I recall Antony Mayfield had something similar around the this time last year, but this would be a great tool come the next UK general election. Any offers?

[via my Edelman/Spook colleague, Marcus Dyer.]

Technorati tags: PresidentialWatch08, Politics, US Presidential Elections,

Conservatives to launch Torypedia

ConservativeHome, the grassroots Conservative website is set to launch a Tory version of Wikipedia.

According to an article on the site, the people behind ConservativeHome are using MediaWiki to

"produce our own online encyclopedia for the Conservative Party and the wider conservative movement in Britain.  It will cover people and events that Wikipedia wouldn't deem 'notable', and by harnessing the wisdom of the ConservativeHome crowd we hope that any pages that do overlap will be better."

I think this is a great idea that will offer the party's grassroots and its future wannabe MPs an invaluable resource to get up to speed with and contribute the party's collective knowledge. The wiki plans to have specific sections covering off:

• Conservative history - e.g. timeline of Cameron's leadership, defining events in Tory history
• Resources - e.g. key Tory party figures, How to become a Tory MP
• Policy - existing Tory policy, debates on key issues

I don't know how exactly the wiki will function, but one challenge I can foresee is how to ensure the site avoids being vandalised or used for political point scoring a la David Miliband's Environmental Contract wiki which was hijacked by Guido and the right a couple of years back.

Great idea, though, really great idea reinforcing the Tories keeping one step ahead of the competition.

Technorati tags: Conservative Party, ConservativeHome, Wiki

Public sector goes Twitter crazy

There was a flurry of activity on the UK & Ireland E-Democracy mailing list today with a Dave Briggs flagging a number of local authorities embracing Twitter.

Dave's list includes

• St Helens
• Southend
• Barnet
• Hillingdon
• Stratford-on-Avon

It's interesting to see how each authority is using Twitter. St Helens is using it to announce news stories; Southend seems to have used it to update the count during the local elections; Stratford-on-Avon are using it in a fully conversational way while Barnet seem to have registered their profile and not much else.

Another and interesting recent addition to Twitter is UK Parliament who seems to be someone behind the scenes at the Houses of Parliament website. This will be really interesting to follow as the HoP website provides a wealth of information from the day's activities in the house and having someone interpreting some of the day's parliamentary news is a great idea.

However, my main bugbear is that there isn't RSS on the HoP website. Given the amount, variety of info and frequency of updates is the perfect site to use RSS. That'll be my first question via Twitter!

Technorati tags: Twitter, Local Government, UK Parliament, Edemocracy

Bloggers, Tory MEPs and why the traditional political party structure is broken

One of the findings from my research into agenda-setting and political bloggers in the UK earlier this year was that there is a distinct blurring of the roles between infuential journalists/media and influential bloggers.

To reinforce this, Mark Hanson has blogged about how two top political blogs drove last week's high-profile campaign to unseat a number of corrupt Tory MEPs.

Both Guido Fawkes and Conservative Home were "swapping research, swapping sources, [and] referencing each other" according to Mark.

Two things strike me as interesting and significant here. Firstly, the timeline of this bears hallmarks of previous political blog campaigns - specifically Guido's hounding of the Smith Institute which was closely followed/suported by the Daily Telegraph.

However, in this instance the sharing of material and sources came primarily from online sources - ie. without support from a mainstream publication (although I acknowledge this may have happened covertly).

Secondly - and as Mark points out - this was a Tory/libertarian attack on Tory MEPs. Antony Mayfield suggests it may be "right-wing bloggers cleaning their own house" but equally it suggests two further things:

1. a concerted online campaign around a specific issue - significant because the internet allows people to aggregate around single issues, something traditional political party structures are unable to foster
2. these single issue campaigns and campaigners are becoming more and more powerful. So potentially powerful in fact that parties ought to be extremely wary of their disruptive force in the future.

This campaign is fascinating because it is a 'ritual cleansing' (to adapt Antony's idea) of the Tory party in Europe - but one conducted by those on the periphery of the party and even beyond (as Antony Mayfield points out: "Guido Fawkes is *not* a Tory").

Traditional political party structures are becoming increasingly redundant and threatened by highly influential and super connected individuals driven by single issues. If was in charge of the Tories, Labour or the Lib Dems I would be investing heavily in understanding the major changes the internet is having not just on communications but on an organisational level as well.

Technorati tags: Politics, Guido Fawkes, Conservative Home, Mark Hanson

Paddick's a Qwitter

I blogged back during the London Mayoral elections about Lib Dem candidate Brian Paddick using Twitter as a tool for a virtual Q&A session with the electorate.

Well it seems that his dalliance with the tool has ended pretty soon after the election happened.

Personally I think it is slightly worse that he is signing off with a "I'm winding down now" message which kind of implies that he has been a regular user of Twitter rather than what was essentially a engagement-initiative-as-PR-stunt.

Maybe that is a bit of an extreme take on it, but wouldn;t it be more authentic to just say: "I tried this during the election to engage with voters and now the election is over I'm signing out."?

Hat tip: Dominic Campbell

Technorati tags: Twitter, Brian Paddick, Politics, Mayoral Elections

Lord of the Blogs: corny name but great blog

I thought Lord of the Blogs was a spoof at first… but a closer look reveals it is a group blog authored by 10 peers from the UK’s upper chamber, the House of Lords.

Despite the corny name and lacklustre design the site’s content is really, really good. Take for instance a recent post from Lord Norton. Responding to requests from commenters who want to know more about the bloggers, Lord Norton posts 10 interesting things about himself in turn achieving two really important things.

Firstly, he is responding to requests from users – creating a genuine dialogue. Ok, it’s not exactly about major policy issues at this stage, but if you set the foundations up right then it's only a matter of time before we get to that stage, surely?

Secondly, he is talking about himself, a member of the UK parliament’s upper (and traditionally most aloof and esoteric) chamber in an informal way.

To give Lord Norton his due he *attempts* to tell us 10 things about himself, but fails. He can only find nine – and one of these is: ‘trains’!

The other interesting thing is that the blog is part of a project being co-ordinated by the independent democracy think-tank, the Hansard Society. I intitially presumed that this would be part of their ongoing Digital Dialogues initiative, but a closer inspection of the DD website shows that it is a separate project.

More info about Lord of the Blogs can be found at the Hansard Society's website or in today's Guardian

Technorati tags: Lord of the Blogs, House of Lords, Hansard Society

Downing Street's digital guru: an interesting choice?

This week’s PR Week reports [paywalled] that Prime Minister Gordon Brown has hired former MD of the London-based commercial radio station LBC as:

“head of digital comms, with a brief to overhaul Prime Minister Gordon Brown's lacklustre web strategy. It is understood more hires could be on the way as the Government prepares for the first general election to be fought largely over the internet.”

Interesting choice. A quick Google trawl turns up nothing much. Mark has no Wikipedia entry - although there’s an interesting Iain Dale blog post from 2006 that suggests Mark was nearly parachuted in for Labour as the Bromley by-election candidate. Apparently he was already advising “Downing Street and the Labour Party on new media (that's the Interweb to you and me)” back then.

I look forward to seeing what developments emerge.

Technorati tags: Downing Street, Mark Flanagan, digital strategy

Brian Paddick reaches out to the London electorate via Twitter

Hot on the heels of Lynne Feathestone MP and No 10 Downing Street twittering I received an email last night from the Lib dem's Head of Innovation, Mark Pack, telling me that the Lib Dem mayoral candidate, Brian Paddick, is holding the world's first interview using Twitter.

Mark's email told me:

"Liberal Democrat Mayoral Candidate Brian Paddick is taking part in an exclusive interview on Twitter, the popular text messaging service, the first time this has been done by a UK politician.

Brian Paddick will be offering an exclusive interview to all of his ‘followers’ on Twitter.  Users who have signed up to follow Brian Paddick on Twitter will be able to text a question and answers will then be sent to the questioners and posted on his official website."

I was struck by two things:

1. the emphasis of Twitter as a text messaging service
2. the offer of an exclusive interview with brian via Twitter

I wondered why Twitter was being sold as a text messaging service when it is soooo much more. I suspected it was due to sell the idea of Twitter to a wide audience. Alan Johnson's deputy leadership campaign manager, Stuart Bruce, confirmed as much to me via Twitter this morning.

The second point is more subtle and seems to indicate the Paddick team's lack of understanding that Twitter, like other social web tools, are shifting the balance between organisations and their stakeholders.

The simple fact that Paddick is on Twitter means he is open to conversation with his 'followers' - so why set up a specific 'exclusive interview'? Or perhaps they are using the story as a neat media hook!

Either way, Ken Livingstone isn't on Twitter and despite the Tories new media savvy Boris and his team consider online debates as not involving "real people". At least Paddick is opening up a new front for direct engagement with his followers/supporters.

*UPDATE* Stephen Waddington reports back via Twitter that he posed a question 20 hours ago and is still awaiting a response.

Technorati tags: Brian Paddick,  London mayoral elections,  Lib Dems, Twitter

Downing Street starts twittering

Following on from Alan Johnson’s use of Twitter for his deputy leadership campaign two new additions to the growing Twitterati are Downing Street and Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone.

I wonder how long before having a Twitter stream is a key part of political communications.

It was only a couple of years ago that blogging MPs were a rare commodity.

It ‘ll probably be quite a while yet though. I spoke to a client’s government relations manager recently about how he communicates with MPs and Peers. His reply was: “Mostly by phone or letter…. Although some are starting to now use email.”

Technorati tags: Twitter, Downing Street, Lynne Featherstone

A Youtube? On the interweb?

However, the best quotation comes from Conservative MP, Andrew Robothan, who - showing the Tories cutting edge credentials - told BBC Online that:

"There is a site called YouTube on the net and you can listen to the video. "I reckon I can hear 'what' being said."

Bless. Read the full story via the BBC.