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Outfoxed by SEO, New Labour Blog Fails In “Being A Blog”

Last week, Labour Party Member (and ex “Spin Doctor” from Downing Street) Derek Draper launched the Labour List to a lot of fanfare and personal appearances in the media. The noise in the UK Political scene was a bit more critical, pointing out errors, mistakes in the approach, and generally saying it looked and smelt like an attack dog from Labour HQ. None of this was helped by Draper’s “leave me alone, it’s just launched and in beta” attitude

To which I ask why shout about it and go on television?

I’ve been keeping an eye on it as best I can, because the design is not what you would normally expect, and i have to say I’m not impressed a huge amount. I am impressed that someone has spotted a need for a central site for left-wing people, but I really hope someone picks up that candle. The number of Government Ministers, Lords and Prospective Candidates is huge, and really does not help distinguish it from the noise that the Labour Party itself puts out.

That’s not good for a supposedly independent blog.

The content, while I’ve not measured it scientifically, seems to be more focused on “aren’t the other parties eeeeevil” rather than discussing issues that affect the labour Party as a whole – which is how the blog was promoted by Draper. Quick responses to Tory advertising campaigns are great, but with little mention of the current economic climate, the Statutory Instruments on the Freedom of Information act or any discussion about Gordon Brown’s position make this blog smell of official party doctrine only.

Finally, the blog is running on a proprietary system, that doubtless cost a fair amount to develop. There are perfectly good open source systems (such as Wordpress and Moveable Type), that have been stress tested by some of the biggest bloggers on the planet. Pity they didn’t pay any designers, but no worries. The content is CC so pop over to www.labourist.org for a clean and legible mash-up version that acts like a blog should (to the point it appears ahead of Labour List in Google searches!)

Why would you choose to pay for an expensive system in a time of recession when proven tools that are cheaper, faster, and have the correct feature set to get involved in the whole eco-system?

I hope the site improves, but right now it looks like a typical government project gone wrong. Over-specced, over-funded, using the wrong tools, and only saying what the party chief has determined is ‘safe’.’

January 21, 2009; Blogs and Blogging, Politics, Web 2.0 (Observations);

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