There’s plenty to say about today’s Cabinet reshuffle… and, frankly, plenty of other places to read it.
But of particular interest to this blog and this blogger, I note the move of Stephen Carter from his Downing Street strategy job to the House of Lords, where he will be the Minister for technology, telecoms and broadcasting. It’s being reported in some circles that this is a ‘soft landing’ after ‘no discernible successes’. It’s certainly a return to pastures old: Carter was the first chief executive of Ofcom, the regulator of telecoms and broadcasting.
I’m also hearing rumours about another change in the junior ministerial ranks, of even greater interest to us lot… which I’ll cover if/when it happens.
PS: Interesting to see the BBC’s ‘snaps’ (Twitter?) -style coverage of the day’s proceedings doing so well in their ‘most read pages’ ranking earlier in the day. They’re taking a leaf out of the Sport site’s use of ‘live text coverage’ on a Saturday afternoon… and it worked well. When there was something to say, that is. Similar snappy style on most of the big news sites – Sky , Guardian, various others.
PPS: I see the Department of Energy and Climate Change have got their new domain all sorted out before close of play: decc.gov.uk Still DEFRA nameservers though… 🙂
There are quite a few reasons to warm to the new Conservatives.com site. A refreshing colour palette; well-executed content tabs; a good solid navbar along the top; and most importantly, lots of human faces. The source code drops all the right names: Flash, Amazon web services, JQuery, Lightbox, and so on. But the apparent obsession with iPod-style ‘coverflow’ effects seems a bit over the top: I can just about forgive the Photo Gallery, but as an entry to the Policy section, it’s just unnecessary glitz.
I must admit, I expected to see much more David Cameron across the site – given his unarguable skills in front of camera, and the relative anonymity of the rest of his front bench. Webcameron is still a live project, and gets a tab on the homepage, but it isn’t – currently – opened by default. Today’s ‘news’ section includes one Cameron pic, plus the faces of two Party spokespeople; but the headlines don’t name them, there’s no room for a summary, and frankly I don’t immediately recognise them. (Their names are in the ALT tags, but I’m not sure that’s much help.) Yet the Ordinary Members in the Wall get an on-page namecheck… curious.
The handling of the local angle is also a bit of a surprise. There’s no ‘enter your postcode’ box on the homepage; instead, clicking the ‘Where you live‘ link in the primary nav takes you to a regional map of the UK (rendered, again unnecessarily in Flash) – and thence to a region homepage. This might be a conscious move ahead of next year’s European elections, but it still feels odd: does anybody actually identify with their region? When you get there, there’s rarely a strong connection between the content and the region – and the postcode search, when you finally find it, doesn’t work at all. Hey, at least Labour’s lookup worked.
There’s been a lot of attention on The Blue Blog: the site’s new group blog, featuring posts from Cameron, fellow front-benchers, and other party people. It’s lacking some obvious functions – eg author by author RSS feeds – but it seems to work well, and it’s a smart move to tie the categorisation into the site’s main thematic classification, even though most topics aren’t being used yet. To comment, you have to be signed up to the site: understandable I suppose, but still a disappointment. Comparison with ConservativeHome will be inevitable, and it’ll be interesting to see what relationship develops (if any) between them.
And as for the Wall of supporters… hmm. The homepage snapshot is good, with deliberate echoes of Facebook, and they’ve clearly given some thought to the Wall page itself. But I’m not sure it works (yet): the clips are either too slick (scripted?), or too rough. At least they’re short and snappy.
Overall, I think I like it. There’s plenty of content, and it’s generally well structured. The design is excellent, but the Flash stuff goes too far. The steps into the social side are welcome, but I find myself a bit disappointed at the micro level: the new LibDems site feels like it’s giving a much better view of local activities and individuals.
Conference season is as good a time as any to refresh a political party website. The LibDems did it last week; this week it’s Labour’s turn; and we’re already hearing details of a new Tory site for next week.
So is this finally the recognition of Labour’s previous online under-performance? Er, no it’s not. It’s bright, it’s red, and it seems (finally!) to have settled on a consistent logo and typeface. The homepage concentrates on latest news and ‘calls to action’. There’s a box of ‘local news’, and a feed from its Labourspace social network. All good stuff in theory, but the execution – editorially and technically – is frankly awful.
Let’s look at the news side first. Look at the appalling use of headline and (remarkably limited) summary space:
So in the week of Labour’s big showpiece public event, with a lovely stage set and lectern and everything, we get a series of ultra-boring file photos. Headlines which tell us precisely nothing that we hadn’t already guessed. And – unbelievably! – nine word summaries, which repeat the anodyne headlines, word for word. (The ‘Happy Mondays’ reference is an honourable exception, especially given the conference venue.)
And to make matters worse… the site’s RSS feed repeats exactly the same content. Even if someone took a design decision that short summaries were cool, why on earth wouldn’t Labour be putting out full-text RSS? It’s not as if they need to attract eyeballs to the site to satisfy advertisers. (It doesn’t validate, either.)
The ‘local Labour news’ is getting its headlines randomly from local Party sites -most, or possibly all, built on the Party’s official web platform, provided by TangentLabs. Except, more often than not, something doesn’t quite work. Quite often, I’m seeing stories with no summary. This shouldn’t be happening on a high-profile homepage; and certainly not if it’s sites created by the same company.
And as for the ‘call to action’ stuff? OK, let’s give it a try. I enter my postcode under ‘EVENTS NEAR ME’ – and get zero events in return. I enter my postcode under ‘LABOUR IN YOUR AREA’ – and it tells me where I live, and who’s standing in next year’s European elections. No mention of any local Labour Party. There’s a tantalising reference to ‘Area Map’… but no map. I enter my postcode under VOLUNTEER – and it gives me a lengthy form to fill in, with (mercifully, at least) my postcode pre-entered.
To be honest, I can’t face digging any deeper. The site simply doesn’t look finished.
I think I need a new printer. The Canon colour A3 inkjet I’ve had for the last year and a little bit gave up this morning. First it was the paper jams, then the print head refused to budge, now it makes a rather aggressive clicking sound. I spoke to two Canon helplines: they were very courteous, and quick to tell me the answer I needed. But it wasn’t really the answer I wanted – ‘chuck it away’.
Something’s clearly wrong with it. It’s more than I can fix myself, but I’m sure someone competent could sort it out. But when did you last see a repair shop in your local High Street? And whilst Canon very kindly offered to send someone out, there’s a £100 call-out fee, with spares on top. For a printer worth maybe £150? It just isn’t worth it. The harsh economic reality is that my printer is going to the local dump. My conscience is only barely soothed by the fact that it’ll be WEEE recycled.
There’s always been a threshold at which things become too cheap to repair. But I’m a bit taken aback by the level we’ve now reached.
A quick bit of web research leads me to a Dell colour laser printer, for under £120. That’s an amazing price, for something which cost £thousands not so long ago. I’ve never had a problem with Dell peripherals, so that’s looking like the most likely option. Unless anyone can advise me of (a) somewhere in Berkshire where I can get a printer fixed; or (b) a better printer deal out there.
There’s a slightly odd atmosphere in Manchester, and I don’t just mean the sunny weather.
The Fabians' fringe meeting at Manchester Town Hall
I’m paying a flying visit, to sit in on a fringe meeting at the Labour conference, to talk about ‘web 2.0’, blogs and all that. Just round the corner from the Town Hall is the main conference venue, surrounded by a ring of steel. It makes the countless ‘welcome’ signs seem a bit insincere. We’re here to talk about using new media to bring the public into politics; meanwhile, outside, the steel barricades and patrolling policemen ensure the public don’t get too close.
I consciously claim the seat in the very back corner of the room: the fringe of the fringe, if you like. I’m here partly out of personal curiosity, partly for business development. I’m not a Labour member; and in my work activity, I’ve always been deliberately apolitical. I work for the government, not the politicians. A meaningful distinction? I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
On the panel we have Liberal Conspiracy‘s Sunny Hundal, and Mark Hanson from LabourHome – representing arguably the two leading leftie blogs, but neither of which exists to promote a Labour message to the electorate. Derek Draper represents party HQ, and the FT’s Jim Pickard covers the view from the Lobby. A few familiar faces in the rather modest audience, and it must be said, a few notable absentees. Very few laptops on show, and as it turned out, almost no mention of technology (per se) all afternoon.
Derek Draper’s opening remarks set the scene. Labour came to power in 1997 courtesy (largely) of a ‘command and control’ approach to media. But on the internet, you simply can’t control the message.
Recognising this new reality would win the party increased respect, credibility and engagement. But a Party that was serious about winning elections would have to be disciplined in its communications – a tactful reference to the week’s front-page story in the Independent about the grassroots demanding Brown should go, based on an unscientific LabourHome poll. (Followed soon after, it must be added, by a much less tactful and more colourful reference to the same.)
From the floor, David Lammy cemented his visionary credentials, saying the old Labour structures simply wouldn’t cut it in the 21st century, and wondering how to engage the younger crowd who took leftie positions on ‘progressive’ causes, but didn’t identify with Labour. He was backed up by Fabian chief Sunder Katwala, asking what exactly Labour’s previous ‘big engagement exercises’ had achieved.
Then, from the back row, blogging MP Tom Harris brought things into sharp focus – basically, could Labour ‘do a ConservativeHome’? It was a point I picked up myself, when handed the mic. The meeting framed Labour’s problem quite nicely, I felt. LabourHome isn’t trying to be ConservativeHome, but comparison is inevitable, and is inevitably unfavourable. It wants to be an open forum for frank debate within the party, not a platform for pushing its official messages. Meanwhile, Sunny Hundal sees Liberal Conspiracy’s mission as undermining the Tories, without building up Labour (or the LibDems, or the Greens…) – with the risk, surely, that politics as a whole will be pulled downwards.
With no disrespect to the many valiant amateurs, in the room and on the web, there’s nobody of sufficient prominence taking on the Dales and Montgomeries, and fighting Labour’s corner. And besides, the problem goes way beyond who’s writing what on which blogs. Communication strategy may be the symptom, rather than the illness.
Even in a few short hours in Manchester, I sensed an air of fatalism. One way or the other, they know the next General Election will be pivotal for the Labour Party. If they don’t reinvent now, they will have to reinvent later. Significant people are asking significant questions, but it may all be too late.
Other write-ups, when/if I find them:
Sunder Katwala at the Fabians’ new Next Left blog (with more swear words than I took down in my own notes).
Tom Harris MP liveblogging (well, kinda). I’m inclined to agree: Draper was definitely good value. But was it ‘well attended’? It makes me wonder how many empty seats you get at other fringe events.
The Parole Board won the title of best website, with the citation calling it a ‘tribute to open communications [which] has received widespread praise from the industry as well as from its victim and offender audiences.’ Designed by ECRU, it’s actually a fairly modest site: the Board’s own press release quotes unspectacular traffic figures of 275,000 page views and 115,000 visits between January and August 2008. And whilst it’s unquestionably pretty and well laid-out, there’s nothing especially exciting about it: no social tech, no RSS even. It just does what it does, but does it well. The plain-English writing is particularly impressive.
And excitingly, there was actually a government winner in the Social Media category too – RAF senior aircraftsman Paul Goodfellow‘s video diary from Afghanistan on YouTube, on behalf of RAF recruitment. ‘With some videos achieving tens of thousands of views, the content proved to be compelling fodder for online and offline mainstream media publications,’ said CIPR.
In local gov, there were awards for Hull City Council’s ‘Slavery – Unfinished Business’ campaign, recognising the contribution of local man William Wilberforce; Westminster’s quarterly tracker survey of public opinion; Tyne & Wear Fire and Rescue Service’s fireworks campaign; Colchester’s quarterly print magazine; Gloucestershire’s guide to flooding; and a second successive award for Devon County Council’s ‘InTouch’ email service to elected representatives and parish magazine editors (again, a modest audience of 530).
Plenty of other local and national nominees too; see the full lists in the event brochure, including details of the rather fabulous menu at the Hilton Park Lane event.
COI has announced details of the bidding process for the contract to promote Directgov. Four agencies are on the shortlist – Chick Smith Trott (incumbents), Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy, Clemmow Hornby Inge and Farm. Now folks, remember, these are advertising agencies: don’t click those links unless you’re ready for a full-on Flash assault.
And what’ll it cost? The contract ‘is expected to last two to three years with a budget of up to £15m.’
Directgov currently receives approximately ten million visits per month. Already.
I’m increasingly convinced there’s a market out there for some kind of managed WordPress hosting. A provider with special expertise in WordPress, PHP and MySQL. Someone who can look after patches etc automatically for you. Who has the knowledge and tools to offer better-than-average security. But crucially, who is also happy for competent people to mess around a bit.
There’s really no argument with the power of WordPress, its simplicity, and (of course) its price. So the point for debate when I go to pitch a WP-based idea, is where it will sit, how secure it will be there, and who will look after patches and updates. Of course, there are good answers to those questions:
use wordpress.com, and let Automattic themselves take care of it all;
self-host, and self-manage;
some kind of rolling arrangement, where you bring Mr Consultant back in as and when;
but I’m thinking of a brilliant answer. One whereby the supplier pledges to apply additional security measures, and to install any patches / security updates to WordPress, PHP or MySQL as soon as they become available… but still gives freedom to designers / developers to make reasonable use of plugins (etc).
Of course, that doesn’t cover you for potential weaknesses in the plugins: and the perfect host would take some responsibility here too – vetting, approving, updating, whatever. I’d be looking for some kind of proactive communication, bringing things to my attention as and when. And of course, let’s not forget the inevitable hosting questions of bandwidth, 24/7 monitoring, disaster recovery, and so on.
If such a hosting provider exists, I’ve yet to find them. I know of several well-regarded services aimed at serious developers; but I haven’t yet seen any aimed at the emerging class of designers with reasonable tech skills.
And I’m steadily becoming convinced there are enough of us around, small-scale operators producing customised WordPress sites, to make it a viable business. Clients would unquestionably pay a decent premium annually for managed hosting like this, especially when the base software itself is free of charge.
It’s not something a solo operator could take on, but I’m wondering if there are people reading this who could help make it happen. Some kind of cooperative, perhaps? Somebody already in the hosting business, with PHP and MySQL skills, but no WordPress t-shirt yet?
Please, if anyone has any thoughts, suggestions or draft business plans… stick a note in the comments, or drop me an email.
There are growing signs of life on the left of the blogosphere. An article a few days ago in the Independent (now displayed inexplicably as a photo gallery?) describes the ‘dramatic impact’ of Sunny Hundal’s Liberal Conspiracy site, launched late last year. (See, I told you.) We’ve had the sale of LabourHome to the New Statesman’s new backer; and conversely, the selection of LabourHome front-man Alex Hilton as Labour candidate in the new Chelsea & Fulham seat (although with the Tories theoretically 30% ahead on 2005’s votes, he needs a miracle). LabourMatters is an interesting attempt to ‘provide Labour news from the grassroots upwards’, aggregating press releases (sic) from ‘councillors, MPs, MEPs, etc’.
But what’s been particularly interesting in the last few months has been a growing self-assertion. Sunny Hundal led a boycott of Iain Dale’s now annual survey of the top political blogs, calling it ‘at best … an ego-massaging exercise which will inevitably push their own narrative that left-blogs are useless.’ Labour councillor Bob Piper opted out because he felt ‘there have been a few occasions when Iain Dale has been rude and derogatory about the standard of ‘left’ blogs.’ (The boycott wasn’tuniversally observed, of course.) LabourMatters, a blogger at LabourHome, dismissed the poll as a means of boosting Dale’s own Google ranking, and called for a policy of refusing to link to Tory bloggers. There has been active discussion about LabourHome’s ‘open door’ policy on site membership.
I guess this is a reflection of the wider political climate. After a long period of broad consensus, there are things worth arguing about. After two rather dull general elections, we’re looking at a real scrap next time. Blogs have earned their place in the political world, and with the stakes higher than they have been in a decade or more, perhaps it’s inevitable that they should become more tribal.
So it’s especially gratifying to see remarkable things like this: right-leaning Matt Wardman contributing an article suggesting (quite radical) improvements to LabourHome, with a contribution even from Guido Fawkes. In theory, these are precisely the people who should be wanting to see it fail.
That’s what attracted me to the political blogs in the first place. It was almost there was more that united them than divided them. Opinions naturally differed, but there was a shared belief in the value (or necessity?) of better reporting and debate. Your readers could learn from your great wisdom and insight, and equally, you would probably learn a lot from them too. (I think back to David Miliband’s New Statesman piece 18 months ago about ‘the politics of I Can‘.)
The left of the blogosphere unquestionably needed to raise its game, and I’m glad to see that happening. Better product on both sides (and in the middle) will lead to better outcomes. As long as it doesn’t result in the loss of the optimism and openness which make it such an intriguing medium.
(I see there’s an event at the Labour conference ‘to discuss how the ‘Labour blogosphere’ is developing’. Should be interesting.)
What are political party websites actually for? We’ll see which way the wind is blowing over the next couple of weeks: the LibDems unveiled a new party site earlier this week, ahead of their conference in Bournemouth; and they’ve just opened they’re on the verge of launching a new site for leader Nick Clegg too. The Tories will be relaunching their site before gathering in Birmingham; most of the attention has focused on plans for a new group blog as a complement (or competitor?) to ConservativeHome etc. No word on anything significant from Labour, although that won’t come as much of a surprise.
The new LibDem site is, I’m told, built on Ruby On Rails; there’s also a bit of Prototype-powered Ajax functionality. It plays things fairly straight: if you’re looking for party news or facts, it’s all there for you. The feel is unquestionably ‘bloggy’, with plenty of RSS icons, a prominent ‘tag cloud’, and (generally) chronological presentation. But it doesn’t feel like it’s trying to inspire, persuade or otherwise stir your emotions.
Instead, the thrust is towards the local dimension – including nice integration with their excellent Flock Together site of local events, a database of LibDem People (including inbound feeds from their blogs and They Work For You where applicable), and a selection of posts on other LibDem sites/blogs. I note with particular interest the page of Online Tools to help party activists build their own sites, including specific widgets for Blogger and WordPress, as well as instructions for Mambo/Joomla sites.
On a functional level, I think the site’s a success. It’s easy to take in, with things in logical places. The chronological presentation is becoming a given these days. I love the widespread use of inbound and outbound RSS; I look forward to seeing how this gets used. And subjectively, I like the visual approach. On the down side, there’s a lack of warmth, of personality to it: but there may be a good reason for that.
Complementing the new party site is a new personal site for LibDem leader Nick Clegg – powered by WordPress 😀 (using a customised version of the Revolution theme, and yes, they do credit it). It’s immediately warmer and more friendly: first name terms, bigger and more smiley imagery, comments enabled on the site articles (written, sadly, in the third person), and so on. There’s a prominent ‘Meet Nick’ button, listing his public appearances: a nice touch, although it does invite comparisons with the Tories’ impressive Cameron Direct.
I note the Flickr, YouTube and Twitter links on the Clegg site are all to ‘libdems’-branded accounts (although not his Friendfeed account: the exception proving the rule, I guess). It’s surely a conscious decision to put this ‘warmer’ material here. And with politics increasingly dominated by the leader’s personality rather than his/her party, it seems like a smart move; I always felt Clegg’s promise to go to court in defiance of compulsory ID cards hinted at a conscious strategy to brand the party strongly in his youthful image. (Clegg’s constituency site remains separate.)
, for under £120. That’s an amazing price, for something which cost £thousands not so long ago. I’ve never had a problem with Dell peripherals, so that’s looking like the most likely option. Unless anyone can advise me of (a) somewhere in Berkshire where I can get a printer fixed; or (b) a better printer deal out there.
