The Wardman Wire

The editor [Ed: me not necessarily you] yesterday bowed out of the blog coverage of the Lib Dem leadership election , but I wanted to get one last post in about it from my perspective as a tech-head. It’s yet another leadership contest and yet another opportunity for people to go on and on about the use of technology in influencing the outcome.

At a time when it is estimated that 69% of the adult population have access to the internet at home, work or school it is a very tempting place to reach out to as part of a campaign. Then there’s lazy journalists that you can feed with your website or Facebook group. In all, the internet is an attractive place to an aspiring leader right now and it’s been a while since we’ve had a leadership election so I thought I would take a look at what’s available now.

Lights, Camera, Action!

There’s no doubt in my mind that the last year has seen an explosion of so-called ‘internet TV’ and this is proven by research released by Continental Research that shows a rise of viewers of internet TV from 3million in 2006 to 4.3million this year. The longer-term prediction is that around 5.7 million people will watch internet TV over the course of the next year. Who wouldn’t want a slice of that pie?

The Liberal Democrats have, to their credit, always been very good at online video. They adopted Google Video and YouTube before LabourVision and WebCameron. You can find a shed load of videos featuring Ming Campbell on YouTube alone and they range from speeches to discussions to diary pieces to camera. There’s no doubt that Cowley Street has put some effort into online video.

However, turning attention to the runners and riders in this year’s leadership election and Chris Huhne has not bothered to put videos on his website. Then again, neither has Nick Clegg. Perhaps Ming Campbell, who was so often mocked for his age, was actually a rather modern chap afterall.

Facebooking

I went to an event at UCL the other day and Shane Greer was the star attraction. He was ad-libbing a presentation (and doing a good job of it) about new media and the old politics. He asked the group to stick up their hands if they used MySpace. One person did. They were mocked. Then he asked for a show of hands for people with Facebook accounts. The whole group, I kid you not, stuck their paws in the air. Clearly the student market is well and truly covered by Facebook.

And that is the point here. Both Huhne and Clegg have Facebook groups in their honour - the home of students and parliamentary researchers. Perhaps that is why they haven’t bothered with video - there’s no need right now. They need to be talking to the people that are going to vote for them in the leadership race and that’s the core activist auidence who will mostly have Facebook accounts.

However, they could do video and Facebook at the same time. There’s already a video uploading application.

It’s Not the Winning

Both of the leading candidates don’t have very good websites, but Clegg scrapes it to the top of my list of two. His site is plain right now with just a box for supporters to sign up to. Chances are that his people are working on a site behind that, which can launch whenever they’re ready. If they happen to read this I hope they would take my advice and invest in a bit of video. People loved it when Boris had one on his campaign site and it could help knock a few more people into the Clegg camp.

Tags: mike rouse, liberal democrat party, libdem, libdemvoice, ming campbell, shane greer, boris johnson, chris huhne, nick clegg[tags]mike rouse, liberal democrat party, libdem, libdemvoice, ming campbell, shane greer, boris johnson, chris huhne, nick clegg[/tags]