The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Last Sunday afternoon, my home phone rang and my wife, picking it up, was surprised to hear the voice of Jack Layton, the leader of the federal NDP on the other end. At first confused and then interested, she listened to the pitch he made. LaytonÕs voice went on to tell her that the NDP that day, the very first day the election was called, was calling a million homes across Canada to get their message out. Is there any other news this week? Dissolving the 39th session of parliament, and sending Canadians into their third election in four years, Prime Minister Stephen Harper set into motion the most technology-heavy election we have ever seen. Political parties in Canada are learning that connecting to voters through the Web, particularly young voters, is a powerful strategy. I spent some time looking through the websites of the four national political parties: the NDP, Green Party, Liberals and Conservatives. All of them have taken to the web over the last few years in a massive way. Websites that can provide information on demand to voters and media outlets are hugely important. But beyond that, the innovation and techniques the parties are using, showcase in this very early part of the election where each party is trying to place itself. NDP: As a huge user of Twitter as a place to gather breaking news and make contact with people across the world, I was definitely interested the other night when my wife told me that the NDP are Twittering. Twitter is a microblogging site. A 140-character maximum keeps updates short and focused. Not only that, on the NDP homepage I found a party that is making a concerted effort to get information out about their agenda and their travels on as many channels as possible. The NDP has hired someone who understands how people use the web. Not only twitter, but the NDP has a Facebook account, a Flickr site with photos posted each day along the campaign trail, blog banners for you to download and use and a YouTube channel with all kinds of videos on it. All of this is front and centre on their website. They are pushing hard to get their message out. Liberals: In contrast to this, I couldnÕt even get many parts of the Liberal Party site to load. They too have Facebook and YouTube accounts featured prominently on the sidebar of their main webpage, but the centre of the entire webpage I could not get to even load any images or information. Instead, the Liberals are advertising that they will send you a sign for your lawn. Green Party: Green Party supporters are overwhelmingly young people. You would think the Web would be a natural fit for this party, and they have made a giant effort to move information on to the Web. Of all the parties this early in the election, the Greens are the party with the most information posted online about their platform and their policies. The Greens have featured blogs that you can subscribe to, they have blog banners you can post on your own webspace and also have uploaded video and audio files of speeches made by Elizabeth May, the leader of their party. But I was surprised to see the outreach part of the Web is missing from what they are doing. Unlike both the NDP and the Liberals, there were no links to YouTube channels or Facebook accounts. They didnÕt have a twitter account rolling across their site with updated news or any other place to make contact. All of their information is concentrated on the site. Conservatives: The Conservatives may be the party with the most interesting Web presence, but not necessarily in a constructive way. The Conservatives have a Twitter account, a Facebook account and a YouTube channel all featured on the front page of their website. But they also have links to a site called Not a Leader that is a direct attack on Stephane Dion and the Liberals. On this site they have games you can play with a virtual slot machine and they also have all kinds of Liberal video clips that you can piece together into a nasty attack ad of your own. Innovative? Certainly, but also the overwhelmingly most negative site of all of the major parties. Learn the facts for yourself. Check out all the sites and make your own choices. Most of all: vote. ([email protected]) Tech Notes runs Mondays.
