puffbox

On tour with the PM

I hinted that there might be more online initiatives coming out of 10 Downing Street; and true enough, next out the world-famous door is a bit of on-the-spot blogging from Gordon Brown’s trip to the United States later this week. For the first time on a foreign visit, a member of the No10 web team is [...] read on »

No10 beats Obama

It doesn’t actually mean anything, but well done to Downing Street for topping 1,000 followers on Twitter. The Twitterholic website collates a popularity contest, which suggests there’s still a l-o-n-g way to go to top Barack Obama in terms of followers - but they’ve already issued more updates in a fortnight than he’s put out [...] read on »

How to live-blog a summit

I think we got away with it. The remit for the week had been pretty straightforward: design, install, build, populate, edit and operate a website for the Progressive Governance Summit of 20-ish world leaders. So yeah, I’ve been busy. It became an exercise in ‘web 2.0′ - open source tools, free online services, RSS feeds, and [...] read on »

No10’s new microsite by Puffbox

Fresh from its success with Twitter, 10 Downing Street is preparing for a weekend of social media experimentation, in association with Puffbox. This Saturday, Gordon Brown is hosting a gathering of around 20 left-leaning world leaders under the banner of Progressive Governance, to discuss globalisation, climate change, development and international institutional reform. (It got a brief [...] read on »

Tories hit Twitter; where’s Labour?

It really is Twitter week in Westminster. Barely ten days after the first MP began tweeting, and only a week after Number 10, the @Conservatives have launched an official channel - although so far, it’s precisely the one-way Twitterfeed-powered channel we all expected @DowningStreet to be (but wasn’t). Likely to be more interesting is @conhome, the [...] read on »

Minister wants more social media

Tom Watson publishes (what looks like) a speech announcing the formation of a Power Of Information Taskforce, to be chaired by former LibDem MP Richard Allan (now senior manager of UK&I government affairs at Cisco), taking forward the Power Of Information report by Ed Mayo and Tom Steinberg. An interim Progress Report on Power was published [...] read on »

Twitter etiquette for corporates

It’s been amazing to watch news of Downing Street’s new Twitter account spreading round the planet. Reaction on blogs and Twitter itself has been a combination of ‘awesome!’, ‘boring!’ and ‘validates Twitter as a proper comms channel’. But it poses an interesting question. Should a corporate channel like /downingstreet be following other people, or is it [...] read on »

No10 now on Twitter

There isn’t much to see there yet, but 10 Downing Street has just opened an official Twitter account. Like a lot of corporate presences, it’s based - in these initial stages at least - on their existing RSS output, and the free Twitterfeed web service. But I had a very interesting chat this afternoon with [...] read on »

No10 man’s blog raised at PMQs

With civil servants’ blogging habits such a hot topic, I can’t avoid mentioning the reference casually dropped into PMQs by David Cameron this afternoon. There is a new strategist, a man called David Muir. Yes, I have done a bit of research—he is the chief strategist and on the internet he has listed his favourite book. [...] read on »

No10’s new recruit is a geek

Various reports on the political blogs about Gordon Brown’s latest recruit to the No10 staff: David Muir, who will work on political strategy. It’s interesting for readers of this blog because, until earlier this afternoon, he was a fairly prolific blogger - until, that is, he flicked the password-protection switch on Typepad. The Times’s Red Box [...] read on »