Conservatives most turned on

For the record, here's a quick survey of the social network and Web 2.0 offerings on the four major national parties' websites - all linked accordingly for your convenience.

The Conservatives, with the broadest array of social networking and web tools, are clearly reaching out to electronically-linked voters, followed closely by the NDP. The Liberal party's efforts on Facebook and YouTube look almost quaint by comparison.

More observations follow after the chart:

Site or tool	Conservative	Liberal	NDP	Green
Facebook (# of supporters)	13,014	12,511	14,620	2,555
Flickr	Yes		Yes
Friendfeed	Yes
MySpace (# of friends)	Yes (24)
RSS feeds	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Twitter (# of followers)	Yes (452)		Yes (439)*
YouTube (# of videos)	Yes (16)	Yes (29)	Yes (34)

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* Bonus marks for NDP: They have a separate Twitter feed (56 followers) en francais.
Note: Numbers quoted above are as of Sept. 10, 2008 @ 9 p.m.

FACEBOOK FAVOUR: As you can see in the chart, NDP Jack Layton is the most popular Canadian politician in terms of Facebook supporters at 14,620 - that puts him just behind Ted Kennedy and just ahead of Al Franken in Facebook's list of politicians.

Stephen Harper is next, sandwiched between former Republican presidential candidates Rudy Giulianai and Fred Thompson; Liberal Leader Stephane Dion is not far behind (between Thompson and the late Lebanese politician Gebran Tueni) and Greens leader Elizabeth May checks in well back of the others (between Iowa Gov. Chet Culver and the late Chilean leader Salvador Allende).

FRIENDFEED: One other note. . . if you simply can't afford to miss a single party announcement but don't have the time to become a friend/follower/support . . . the Conservatives' Friendfeed page pulls together all of their social networking and online sharing feeds in one place.

THIS JUST IN.... An update to this post can be found here.

Comments

[Antonia]

Chris,

Ya knows I luvs ya but try counting up the anti-Harper groups on Facebook. :-)

Here, let me get you started:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=29529380865
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5301688023

[CHM]

Conservative's French Twitter feed is at http:// www.twitter.com/premierministre

[Bob Parry]

While I like seeing the statistics of a public opinion poll, I have come to believe that too many voters decide their vote on the basis of a poll rather on the issues and the positions taken by political leaders and other politicians. Instead of informing voters about key issues, too many voters tend to look at the numbers and either decide to vote for the party who looks like it will win, or they don't vote at all because they feel their party cannot win. The leaders should address issues, not the polls. Brian Mulroney beleived that public opinion polls should be banned during elections. While I never like Mr Mulroney, I must concede, he had a point on this issue.