It's the most enjoyable time of the year - ELECTION TIME!
Yay. I am actually a bit of a political junkie. It's not something that I frequently, if at all, write about as I prefer to enjoy the blood sport as an observer rather than a contributer.
This election cycle I would like to jump on the bandwagon for a topic that is closer to my interests - the technologies used by each of the parties to get their message out to the wired masses. I will of course be peppering my own thoughts on what platform I think/know they used, the emotional impact of the site, and things I would change if they were paying me to do it - this survey is by no means exhaustive but it is food for thought.
This is a fun little excursion for me and hopefully you will surf each of the sites of Canada's major political parties and most importantly you will get out and VOTE on October 14th!
Let's dive-in with the current Government of Canada.
The Conservative Party of Canada - http://conservative.ca/
Technology Platform
Looks like a home brew by Backbone Technology.
SEO Friendly
Nope. The URL's are numbers. Bad, bad, bad.
Connected to "The Social"
Facebook, Digg, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, FriendFeed, Delicious and MySpace all are visible.
Emotional
I am on Fox News. All the truth all the time. It's sterile here. Cold. Scary big image of Harper holding what looks like crayons - ah no cigarillos for kids! On the front page there are more pictures of another candidate than of Harper. (as of 11p Sept 17). Cool, Harper has a Flickr photostream. I didn't know that Laureen Harper was also the Leader of the Conservative Party (see under Leader)! Oh, I thought the Social links didn't work; turns out they were changing in a browser that was behind the current window. A quick little blurb written by the local candidate Darrell Pasloski, no picture though. Riding map is a fuzzy image of the Yukon but to be fair the Yukon is pretty big in terms of square KMs. Hrm, how would I donate to Darrell; the donation site is kind of confusing.
What I would Change
There are two links, E and F. Know what those stand for? English and French. Big fail on usability there.
There is no search functionality on the main page.
Finding my Candidate for Yukon required me to choose from a drop down. Gimme a map to click on!
Fix the Social links to spawn individual new windows.
Fun Fact
Harper has 14,385 supporters on Facebook!
The Liberal Party of Canada - http://liberal.ca
Technology Platform
Note sure. Runs on Microsoft's IIS web server and uses Adobe Contribute to edit the content.
SEO Friendly
A bit better but still cluttered with file extensions and english/french -- the _e and _f on each file
Connected to "The Social"
Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace all are visible.
Emotional
Lots of white space here. It's sparse here. Whoosh, here comes some Flash image thing. Hmm, when I move the mouse over the menus things are happening below the menu - strange. Lots of text here. Easy on the eyes though. Cool, there is a twitter feed on the events page. Nice, a clickable candidate map. Meh, the candidate maps are PDFs taken from Elections Canada. There is Larry Bagnell and a picture of his smiling face. Hey - I can Facebook directly to Larry from here. Looks like someone else wrote his bio. Oh, the view map link shows me an embedded version of the PDF in a Flash page. Easy to donate to Larry.
What I would Change
Fix that issue with menus causing other things to happen
Fun Fact
Dion has 13, 079 supporters on Facebook!
The New Democratic Party of Canada- http://ndp.ca
Technology Platform
Drupal!
SEO Friendly
Much Better but some URLs don't have aliases (Drupal speak for clean URLs that Google likes)
Connected to "The Social"
Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube and FriendFeed all are visible.
Emotional
Wow - Orange. There's Jack. Hi Jack. Jack has a Twitter feed on the front page. Friendly looking page that is easy to read - good text spacing. Some stories on the left about NDP happenings. Jack sure is smiling in a lot of places, has blue eyes and rolls up his sleeves. Ooh, pretty clickable riding map. The candidate, Ken Bolton, gets his own sub-domain. Boo, no text, pictures or information here. I could volunteer for him, take a sign or make a donation - all very easy.
What I would Change
Not much, this is a clean site. There are a *lot* of pictures of Jack Layton though.
Fun Fact
Jack has 16, 851 friends on Facebook!
The Green Party of Canada - http://greenparty.ca
Technology Platform
CiviCRM - (aka Drupal!)
SEO Friendly
Sort of - but some URLs don't have aliases (Drupal speak for clean URLs that Google likes)
Connected to "The Social"
Ack! None?!?
Emotional
Definitely Green. Hey, there's Elizabeth. Oh, they have one elected member of parliament. Good for them. Recent news feed on the front page. There are a lot of links on this page to other places. Hrm, some take me to others sites that detail their campaign details. They seem to really be pushing the youth vote - unfortunately most the photo models are not yet able to vote as they are under 18. Now I can't get back to the campaign site - retype the URL. Whoa, good luck clicking on PEI on their riding map for this "Electiion" (sic) (although in their defence it is hard to click on PEI on all the other parties maps). There is John Streicker with picture and contact details. Following the link to his own website - hey he has a blog. Hmm, two posts about strategic voting. Some videos. Easy to read as well.
What I would Change
Need more social elements and many of the ridings either haven't been updated by their candidates as the statement that the Greens are running in 300+ ridings isn't proven out by the website.
Fun Fact
No Facebook equals no friends for May. Boo.
And for fun and giggles because it is late and I am getting a little loopy.
Parti Québécois - http://www.pq.org/
Technology Platform
Not sure
SEO Friendly
Non - lots of numbers and ampersands in the URL
Connected to "The Social"
Ack! None?!?
Emotional
Yup. This is in French. Time to pull out the Larousse. Good layout though. Wish I could read more of it. Hmm, the front page is attacking the provincial government of Charest (a Quebec Liberal and a pre-Reform-Conservative-merger small "c" Conservative) Good candidate listing - every candidate has a professional photograph with the same composition. They also each have a resume listing their qualifications. Still in French though. No maps of ridings, but it is all in Quebec anyway.
What I would Change
They would have to run candidates in Yukon actually this wouldn't be a bad idea given the number of Francophones in Yukon.
They are the only parti (sic) without a .ca website. Of course if you are a separatist party you would tend not to want to have one...
Fun Fact
No Facebook equals no friends for Marois. Boo.
So there is my stream of conciousness political analysis - get out and vote. Facebook does not count.
Although by that tally Jack Layton is the big winner!
