Saturday, September 30, 2006

Tories Try New Media

Over in Britain, the Tories - hoping to end years out of power when Tony Blair steps down as Prime Minister and new elections are held - is taking a step into the world of blogging, the Guardian reports.

Under the direction of Conservative Party head David Cameron, they've launched Webcameron. The site includes a blog by Cameron, video blog entries, comments, a blogroll, and guest spots (the first is a chat with US Senator John McCain). This morning the first thing you see is an opening frame of a video with Cameron standing at his kitchen sink - definitely not what you usually expect from politicians.

Very often when a corporation or political party tries to use these kinds of new media, the results are obviously false and calculated. From what I've seen of this site, however, that doesn't seem to be the case at all.

Will the site actually help the Tories connect to younger, net-Savvy Britons and get an edge in the next election? That remains to be seen; and of course, no matter how well done the site is, British voters will also be thinking about the actual policy of the parties.

It's an interesting project, though, and well-timed, with public frustration with Tony Blair and the Labour Party running high. I suspect we'll see a lot more sites like it - both in the UK and here in the US.

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