You don't even need to know who this lot are; it's the concept. Show the wizard behind the curtain.
This is from Harry Shearer's 'damn channel'. Harry's the voice of numerous Simpsons characters. His channel has loads of this stuff.
New Washington Times (owned by the very, very right wing Moonies) Style Guide:
2) Gay is approved for copy and preferred over homosexual, except in clinical references or references to sexual activity.David Duke (notorious white supremacist leader):
3) The quotation marks will come off gay marriage (preferred over homosexual marriage).
"I don't see much difference in Barack Obama than Hillary Clinton--or, for that matter, John McCain."New Republic: Post-racial - how the American far-right is coping
All Mehdi Kazemi News updates are now at medhikazemi.com
Most recent headlines should display below:
Hallelujah seems to be the appropriate response to the news that Channel Four is supporting a libel claim against West Midlands Police.
These are the mob (WM police) which took Channel Four to law over their broadcast of a documentary featuring footage of British preachers calling for homosexuals to be killed, espousing male supremacy, condemning non-Muslims and predicting jihad.
Reading through the comments online as the Daily Mail launches its campaign against plastic bags is an object lesson in:
Google translation from the Italian (Source: radioradicale.it):
In the coming hours the gay Iranian Seyed Mehdi Kazemi will be transferred from Holland (where he is after having fled from England following the British authorities' refusal to grant him political asylum) to London, before being deported to Iran where he risks execution for the crime of "lavat" (sodomy). The delivery of Mehdi should happen already tomorrow.Monday's protest (in Italian)
None Touch Cain and the Radical Party Nonviolento, transnational and transpartito ask the Foreign Minister D'Alema to intervene immediately to the UK to freeze the unacceptable process of deportation to Iran of Mehdi. That represent a violation of international conventions on human rights and in particular the Convention on Refugees, the jurisprudence of the European Court on Human Rights and the same law (Directive 2005/85).
Yesterday [Monday 25th February] at 17:30 in Rome, in front of the Embassy of Great Britain (Via XX September, 80), there will be a demonstration of No Touch Cain, Nonviolento Transnational Radical Party and Transpartito and Group Everyone, to ask the Government to halt the English 'extradition of Medhi to Iran.
I may have mentioned my lack of impress with Ken Livingstone's online campaign for the London mayoralty. The first efforts out the gate broke numerous web norms with the biggest hole being leaving supporters without fightback material against the rapidly building anti-Ken campaign and unexplained requests for money from Labour after it's fundraising scandals.
To be a wee bit more positive, here are ten tips culled from the US Primaries experience. They'll be applicable to both Boris and Brian and Siân as well but both of Ken's main challengers are miles ahead already.
I am not including the very, very basics such as not relying on images in email to convey information or testing your site for its usability — if you don't get that sort of thing everything here is waaaay too sophisticated.
1. Email.
labels:
blogging,
California,
channel four,
egov,
google,
hillary,
ken,
kenya,
labour,
marketing,
mccain,
media,
mobiles,
obama,
pr,
tories,
TV,
UK politics,
usability,
women,
youtube
Latest of my Google Reader starred items:
Following on from Jon Stewart:
Oscar is 80, "which automatically makes him the front-runner for the Republican nomination"Late night hosts seem to have settled on McCain's age for comedy value.
In January my fabulous egov webbie colleague Jeremy Gould organised the first UK Barcamp for government, held at Google HQ. BarCamp is a newish way of organising gatherings that's a breath of fresh air over the usual stale conferences.
It was an enormously successful event, for the first time drawing in a significant non-government input from the, often isolated, other people in NGOs, SMEs etc as well as bloggers with an interest. I was very sorry I missed it, not the least because it's exactly the sort of event I've wanted to see for - actually - years.
However ... and not having been there I recognise the limb I'm climbing onto (I used to review concerts and this is a classic, don't review if you weren't there) ...
One subject which I noticed was absent from discussion and follow-up and also didn't appear in the stated interests of the attendees was online marketing although I'm sure Search was discussed - it was @Google UK HQ after all.
Of course this is a first, so everything wouldn't make it in, although the 'agenda' at a BarCamp is all about what interests attendees, but it wouldn't surprise me if marketing was completely absent as my experience is that the area just doesn't register in the UK GovWeb scene. It wouldn't have been a focus for attendees because Social Media (in particular), online democracy and similar 'frontier' areas are 'subjects du jour' and there hasn't been the prior resonance, the history, with marketing as a topic for the people in this scene to put it on the agenda.
Elsewhere, it's never been a subject of interest within eGov. What there has been has been either irrelevant or dated (see DirectGov marketing and paulcanning posts passim) but - largely - notable by its absence. There is still no basic advice for government webbies on basic webbie things like Search Marketing / Search Optimisation (though government will advise SMEs on it!).
I hate to reuse the same word but here we go ... this is another disconnect. Marketing and especially Search Optimisation is an absolute essential for any web project.
Simply put, the 'findability' of any site is dependent on it and if something can't be found it won't be used. It precedes Usability.
I can't put it any simpler: if you don't market, how are you going to get used?
The eGov prism through which this topic is missed can be seen in something like discussions about whether councils or specific services (like Youth) should have a Facebook or Bebo page. The eGov discussion would revolve around what you would do with it, how you would use it to 'engage', policy etc. Wonky stuff.
But look at how Presidential candidates (and now some UK candidates) use these huge sites — it's mainly about extending their web presence. Making themselves more 'findable' because they are there in as many places as the potential voters might find them. That first, then maybe they might actually do more with that presence. That's how candidates have behaved online.
Never mind what you might do with a Bebo page, for example, if you simply stick one up that links to somewhere else that helps someone - especially the Youth - find you, boosts your overall presence and promotes your landing page(s). Just doing that is credible to audiences, anything more is pre-empting and assuming attitudes - you don't need to do more.
This is just the beginning, the very basics of online marketing - extending your presence.
Any web site manager looking through their logs will see a host of traffic sources. Looking at my blog; it's bits of traffic which adds up. Different posts finding different audiences through me pinging, links I've asked for and links which self-generate, referral, even one Wikipedia link which has brought lotsa traffic. And Email isn't insignificant as a traffic source. This is exactly how any other site builds traffic.
I've written a lot about how massive efforts like DirectGov really don't help punters through thinking themselves 'special' and not behaving like the rest of the web. How people use lots of different search terms and most won't find them what they want from government via Google, (which is how most people find anything online). Search is not easy (the mighty BBC is screwing it up right now) but it's not like others don't know how to do it and it's not like government doesn't have inbuilt advantages (trust).
The simple fact is that marketing is largely absent from the projects not just devised by big bad bureaucratic government but also those of the Frontierspeople: hence the gap at BarCamp. (Relative) successes tend to come from unsought viral promotion or exclusivity. They don't come from any thought through online marketing strategies because - put bluntly - there are none in eGov.
Any comparison with other sectors just shows this gap in its sharp relief. Who else would keep building sites with no strategy to drive traffic, let alone target an audience?
What actually is depressing is that, without wanting to sound martyrish, I'm scratching around to think of who else is raising the topic. There just seems to be very little resonance for marketing within eGov.
Am I wrong?
I'm scratching around for reasons and the only one I can think of which makes sense is look at the personnel. Who is coming from online marketing backgrounds into eGov? How does this knowledge make its way in? By contrast geeks. tekkies and wonks (of which I'm at least one meself) we have a-plenty.
Solutions? Again, I'm scratching but I think the quickest is to connect with the Frontierspeople equivalent in online marketing and not wait on the bureaucracy. I would also guess that this sector - being citizens and tax-payers themselves - wouldn't all be disinterested in contributing. It's just a shame that we'd (eGov) be coming from such a low base in that potential engagement.
But first we, eGov, just need to recognise online marketing as a vital, core part of creating websites. That hasn't happened yet.
The views expressed here are my own. You may disagree. Post a comment. Views may or may not represent those of my employer.
mehdikazemi.com
news about LGBT asylum
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email paul.canning AT gmail.com
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