St Edmonds Lab

If the number of facebook friends you have is any indication of popularity then Kevin Rudd is going to win this election by a landslide. Whilst Kevin has reached the facebook limit of 5000 friends, with a further 5000 requests pending, John Howard has only just crept over the 1000 mark. If only it were that simple. Over the next few weeks we’re going to see our fair share of baby kissing in shopping malls, but during this election campaign there is a new voter to canvas. The online community; and their ability to influence should not be underestimated.

Parts of collage based on photos by PoppyW and Spike55151.

I think before I go too much further I should declare my lack of interest in this election. As a Pom who has not got round to sorting out his residency yet I don’t even get to vote. So I guess I’m in the perfect position to sit back with my laptop open and poke them both. Each week during this campaign I’ll be writing this column to bring you up to speed with interesting facts like whether George W is friends with John H, or whether Kevin is surrounded by a bunch of Zombies. But don’t just leave it up to me. Post your comments on anything that grabs your attention over the coming weeks. Funny or serious, official or unofficial it doesn’t matter, just post them here and let’s have our own election debate.

It is fair to say that up until a few months ago both parties were simply tinkering around the edge of the internet. Sure they had a variety of websites to their names, but they consisted of fairly dull news updates and the odd bit of political mud slinging. Neither party had embraced any of the ‘new, improved’ internet. But have a look now and it’s a very different story. Both parties have got a YouTube and MySpace page, and Mr Rudd has gone one further and created a facebook profile. A quick glance at John Howard’s facebook page suggests he also has taken that step, but closer inspection suggests otherwise. Apparently our PM is interested in women, and his activities include “Politics, observing polls, running fear campaigns and cunningly releasing new policies to win elections.”

And here lies the challenge. If Kevin and John thought that political scapping amongst each other during Question Time was tough, just wait until they realise that the networked communities take no prisoners. You are canvassing in a constituency that has no leaders and no written rules and there is certainly not such a thing as a safe seat. It is the domain of everyone and you can be elected or stripped bare at the click of a mouse. You only need to look the current battle between “Obama Girl” and “Guiliani Girl” in the US (find clips here) to see the potential minefield. In short you have very little control, a subject I will touch on in coming weeks.

So which party is embracing this new form of political door knocking and which one is simply ticking a box because his advisors heard that this MyBook thingy was all rage. Well I have to take my hat off to the Labor team who seem to have grasped the nettle with both hands. Whilst John Howard is busy rewriting history by changing his entry in Wikipedia, Mr Rudd has created a carefully branded election portal for all things Kevin. Kevin07 is not necessarily going to win any IAB awards, principally because it is a direct rip off of any number of US election sites, but it is a solid attempt to create consistency and focus and to wrap together all the different digital channels under one umbrella. As a Labor spokesperson said “Kevin07 will encourage supporters to interact with one another, participate in blogs and stay in touch with what is happening on the campaign trail.” This was closely followed by a statement from the Liberal party stating that Mr Rudd’s approach was a “load of crap”.

I am pleased to say that neither party has gone down the “my first Sony” route of trying to indoctrinate users of Bebo. However, any party that simply makes a token effort on the web fails to understand that the social networks are not just for kids. Far from it, and dismissing these communities has got the potential to alienate the heartland for a key demographic group. What role will the web play in deciding the fate of either candidate? Well I don’t know the answer to that, but I suspect it will become a little clearer in a few weeks. And who knows, at that time, maybe one of them will need to start discovering the benefits of a network on Linkedin.