The Conservatives launched their latest online initiative, Webcameron, on Saturday to coincide withe the party's annual conference which began ysterday.
On first appearances, it looks good. The layout and style are all clearly web 2.0 and the functionality is self-evident to anyone over 12 (tag clouds, YouTube style videos, Flickr style images).
But then again, with former Google employee, Sam Roake, behind the scenes you would expect it to look up-to-date.
Not that I'm knocking it. I was extremely excited when I read about the site on the front-page of Saturday's Guardian and think it takes UK politics in an entirely new direction.
My only concern, and I have voiced this before, is how much of the site is about building open conversations through online networks and how much is about using the whole web 2.0 buzz as a tool to deliver traditional political communications.
I mean, true enough, the look is there, but as a child of New Labour I am deeply cynical about political communications. The exclusive going to the Guardian over the Times or Telegraph - targetting the nontraditional liberal vote and the oh-so-cleverly-placed Ecover washing up liquid in Dave's first piece to camera. To me these smack of manipulated messaging, not the kind seen in social / online networks where the mantra: If you are useful to the network, the network will be useful to you hols true.
That aside, William Heath, makes a good point in the UK and Ireland's edemocracy forum when he writes:
"If he's busted for being insincere the consequences would be great deal more serious now he has offered this level of apparent intimacy."
And you know what, he's right. It's a big gamble.
Likewise, Antony Mayfield (one of the few PR / social media bloggers to review the site) sums it up by declaring: "Cheesy but refreshing."
Webcameron may be lacking in substance (11 comments / posts tagged 'India' about Dave's recent India jaunt but only four tagged 'polices) but it's early days and there isn't much to say at all on Tory polices so- far under Cameron anyway.
This may all change as the party unveils its outlook at this week's conference and that aside Webcameron utterly outstrips Labour and the Lib Dems in terms of online activity.
But again I am sceptical as to whether the site will - as The Tories and chief political correspondent at The Guardian, Will Woodward, seem to think - reach out:
"to a blogging generation that is disaffected and disconnected from mainstream politics"
Top marks for innovation but three points I'd like to follow-up at a later date are:
- If Dave becomes Prime Minister will he contine blogging/vlogging?
- Will New Labour realise that even if the initiative is not entirely characteristic of social networking sites, the Tories' policy [sic] of associating with the web 2.0 buzz aligns them with a fast-growing and popular trend thus equally so in terms of political perception?
- Is Webcameron the much anticipated social neworking site broken by Marketing magazine (oh, and me!) a few weeks back?
Cross-posted: eDemocracy Update
I think both you and Anthony Mayfield are spot on on this one. I only have on point to add which is that politicians come to social media from a very different place than most of people who haven't been in the thick of the media spotlight for long periods before. Most bloggers and vbloggers are un-media trained (if there is such a word) and so when they do get in front of a camera the performance is very different to that of a professional like Cameron. His gestures are very practiced and its like he's in a BBC studio or talking from a lecturn. And like most of us he starts by blogging about blogging . . . . I for one want to hear more about the content rather than the channel he will use to tell me about it, but then I guess that is the big debate about him now.
Posted by: David Brain | October 02, 2006 at 09:34 AM