The minor parties and the Internet
Michelle Sullivan continues her rating of the parties and their websites. In her earlier article she gave National an A and Labour a C+ for their web strategies.
- NZ First – same design since 2002 – a D
- ACT - website okay but needs tweaking, not enough use of social networking and You Tube – a C
- Maori Party – simple website, little content – a C
- Family Party – a shiny website, too American, but will be popular with many. No grade given
- Green Party – expected big things but underwhelmed. Suggest more video on front page. Overall good and gets a B grade.
- United Future – nice three column setup. Blgo is integrated into site. Also like minipolls. A solid B.
- Progressive – unusual design – some will like it. Little content – C-.
So the overall rankings would be:
- National A+
- Greens B
- United Future B
- Labour C+
- ACT C
- Maori C
- Progressive C-
- NZ First D
That is pretty close to the rankings I gave out earlier this year in various presentations I did on the issue. I had Greens and National the top two but Greens higher. I also had Progressive and NZ First as the bottom two. I did have ACT over Labour though but still around the middle.
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Tags: ACT, Family Party, Greens, Internet, Labour, Maori Party, Michelle Sullivan, National, Progressive, United Future, websites, Winston First
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:42 am
I think a C+ now for labour is unfair. Earlier in the year though it was completely warranted, I actually like the design of their labour08 site, I think they’ve leapfrogged national in that regard, albeit far too late. I’d be both giving them a B+/A- type grade. I think the colour scheme on labour’s is a bit better though. Just cos national’s colour is blue doesn’t mean they have to go all corporate blue everywhere, I think the designers should’ve known better on that one. But i’d say both are now pretty even.
NOTE: This is ignoring content, just design, usability and access to content
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:59 am
somewhatblind, try taking your rose-tinted glasses off and then take another look.
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:23 am
I don’t care about websites but National is turning me right off right now with their emails.
I signed up for KeyNotes but now I also get JK’s daily blog — which is a whole lot of absolutely nothing.
“shook a baby in Wainuiomata and kissed someone’s hand in Upper Hut”..
Does anyone really need this kind of minutia?
And since I didn’t actually *subscribe* to the blog — it’s bloody *SPAM* in my book.
Just because I subscribe to one relatively infrequent email newsletter does *NOT* give National (or anyone else) to litter my in box with whatever else they think I should be reading.
So… for sensible email policies and signal-to-noise ratio of those emails, National gets a big fat ZERO!
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:36 am
Great to see the Family Party site noticed, shame she didn’t give it a grade.
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:54 am
THe Lefty tards can’t run the country properly but apparently they can’t run a decent website either. Contrast this with the competence and quiet proficiency with which ACT and National run their websites – a foretaste of things to come.
Is there anything Leftists can do right? The vacuuming, maybe?
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:01 am
“shame she didn’t give it a grade.”
Yeah, real weird. Love “The homepage has a interesting video that paints a picture of life in sin city with a ‘Cops meets the Matrix’ twist to it, and I couldn’t help but hum ‘bad boys bad boys what they gonna do’.” though.
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:13 am
Just curious, what are her credentials for such analysis, because quite frankly some of her analysis is flawed and too light on substance that’s it’s almost laughable.
I mean how’s this for a summary
“Having now spent a considerable amount of time delving into New Zealand political party websites I’ve come to the conclusion that the parties are not that web savvy and their web strategies are letting them down”
So in what ways are their web strategies letting them down, give examples and show us what she thinks is a good example?
As for her assessment of the John Key web site, whops I mean the National web site, surely she must mark down on that strategy. This is not his site, it is the site of the National Party, but there are 5 images of Key on the front page and little reference to the rest of the party/MP, not that it’s really any better over at Labour’s site. But such marked difference in scores for the two web parties is very strange indeed.
To consider Labour’s site less than that of United Future is laughable in the least. Seems one of her main criticisms of Labour’s site is the lack of social networking development, yet the only such thing (well technically it’s not even social networking) on the United Future site is the blog within the site.
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:31 am
C is a fair call for the Labour site, its pretty crap and at first glance the landing page its far too busy! There’s a general lack of consistency of information across the site i.e. MP Profiles, some have them some don’t, pretty basic stuff one would assume. Following recent events i think its safe to assume that Labour aren’t spending huge amounts on their web strategy. The National site on the other hand (and while not a supporter) is slick, easy to navigate, the landing page is not overwhelming and the “Blue” while corporate, gives it a tidier more professional edge. The Greens have done a fab job of their new site, its clean and concise. Maybe a little underwhelming as far as the graphics go but they are there you just have to dig a little.
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:34 am
She quite liked the Maori Party site for its simplicity. Yes, they simply used a free Joomla template.
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:58 am
The Maori Party is potentially the worst of them all. They have the greatest potential for branding, they have an excellent logo and a wealth of imagery and other marketing tools at their disposal.
Noting wrong with using a free Joomla template, but the one they’ve chosen is a shocker.
October 22nd, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Interested to see that the Family Party is the only party outside of parliament to get a mention as a monor party. What does she know about them that gives them meteoric elevation? Maybe she lives in South Auckland? He, he!
October 22nd, 2008 at 2:22 pm
No Grade for the Family Party website? O.K. I give it an A. Why? Michelle should also have looked at how much money these parties have available to them to put into a web strategy. All others being incumbent, they not only have money but also experience and should have built on previous web presence. Good on Family Party for putting together a professional website that people can actually understand, with a shoe string budget.
October 22nd, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Oh the follies of writing an article a month before it gets published.
ACT completely re-did our website about 3 weeks ago, with a new design/homepage/blog and social networking links.
We’re still making minor improvements every day.
So yeah, this article was out of date before it was even published.
To be fair, the Labour website has also improved significantly since this was written.
It’s even authorised now!
October 22nd, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Until the respective leaders (and, where appropriate, senior spokespeople) take, say, an hour a day to sit down at a keyboard and engage with people by answering their questions and responding to their comments in a lightly moderated forum (no four letter words, no personal abuse, everything else goes) then it’s all just window dressing and deserves a D.
October 22nd, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Rex,
Rodney regularly comments here on Kiwiblog, doesn’t that count?
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:27 pm
petermcc: Kudos to him for that, but he’s made around 25 comments here – not nearly the equivalent of engaging on your own blog or forum. I had a great deal of admiration for the fact that he started his own site in a blog format, but that got absorbed into the Act site and he became as remote as any other leader. I think that’s especially bad for someone like Rodney, who’s an engaging and highly intelligent man who’d win over a lot of skeptics if they were able to communicate with him directly.
October 22nd, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Tanzcos, Norman, Bradford and Turei occassionally post and reply to comments on frogblog too…
October 22nd, 2008 at 11:07 pm
stephen: Didn’t realise that. Kudos to them too, in that case. But would still like to see to see a party leader emulate Andrew Bartlett who personally blogged when he was a Senator, when he was Leader of the Democrats, and continues to blog today. No too much to ask, surely?
October 24th, 2008 at 4:30 am
Considering the VDS is part of Labour’s web strategy I’d give Labour an F.
That site is lame and looks like its run by some sad sack of sick that don’t have a clue what’s good for New Zealand or what a real job is for that matter.
October 27th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
ewwww…
The Labour one is looking worse than ever.
I have to say I preferred the red shiny thing with the funny flower shape on it better than the current incarnation…