By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982
Here's some more evidence that Labour's online operation has bettered the Tories'.
On the day that the independent MyDavidCameron announced it has received 105,000 visits from 90,000 individual readers in just two weeks, the Labour Party itself is now gearing up to launch its own iPhone app next month.
The app will provide up-to-the-minute information and campainging tools, personalised to the user's location by GPS or postcode.
It will also feature:
* Updates from Labour's social networking presence, including Facebook and Twitter.
* Local Labour representative contact details, including MPs and PPCs.
* Local and national Labour Party news.
* Personalised notifications and alerts so you can get all the latest news and information out to Labour candidates and supporters on the doorstep during the election period.
Perhaps most importantly, the app will make the successful Virtual Phone Bank mobile – enabling a user to easily call voters from wherever they are.
Currently, you can visit LabourList from your iPhone and bookmark the page so it appears on your main screen – as I have. I wonder if the Party will include our posts anywhere on its new app?
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iPhones may not necessarily be widespread among the core Labour vote outside of the M25. iPhones tend to cost about £30 monthly - it's just possible that some potential Labour voters in Barnsley, Harlow, Tredegar or Falkirk need to put that £30 into their gas meter.
I'm not decrying the iPhone app, but really wondering if it's the most effective use of money to target the only voters who are going to make a national difference?
Actually, come to think of it, how will embracing the iPhone or the Internet benefit anyone?
No seriously, lets have a serious look at this for a minute. The LL does its bit, it lets Labour minded individuals get their ideas out in the open and a minor splatter of Conservative joshing scattered around the place for good measure, but at the very least the editor has a heart. He understands what it means to be a British person in a country that is slowly descending out of control and can only be saved by solid policy decisions.
This doesn't matter. The iPhone matters about as much as the hair on my big toe. Its a tool, a phone that numerous people buy because it does nice things with nice graphics, but it doesn's solve the problems that face Britain, and thats what we really need. We need a Labour Party that is less interested in popular opinion and much more interested in the long term benefits to British society.
So we are a multi-cultural society, great, fantastic. Okay, so if we're all equal, why discriminate against portions of society because they don't fit into current political thinking. You all know what I'm on about so I won't bore you with the details, but think about it, if we are all equal, lets act that way. Why should I care one jot about what my mate gets up to in the bedroom? If his partner is male, does that effect me? If he smokes, does that matter? If he decides he is Conservative-minded... um.. well, okay maybe we can go back to the whole being gay??
Seriously though, what is the issue? We have a nation that is not really earning its keep. Don't get me wrong, people are working and working hard, but what for? Are they working for sucessive governments to finally sell the last British asset? Are they waiting for the day when the so-called political elite realise that they have more in common with African dictators than just the bananas in their fruit bowls?
Come on now. An iPhone App? We're less than 5 months away from an election. Please tell me that the Labour Party have thought further ahead than messing around with technology and lying through their teeth about the uptake of the ID card in Manchester?
Actually the nurse at my last diabetic clinic visit was pleased to see that I had hair on my big toe. She told me that it showed good circulation of blood to the feet which is important for diabetics.
Similarly, I think the iPhone app will give some benefits for a few campaigners. The problem is the words "some" and "few" in that last sentence. I'm not quite sure what you are saying about gay, multi-cultural smokers, but I do think the ID card programme will be dropped nearer the election. The fact that Home Secretaries have clung on to it sop long seems to me that once in the Home Office they do not remember that they are citizens like the rest of us, but then I expect the same to happen to a Conservative Home Secretary.
Good to see that things are progressing here though, searching for some new faces, but keep bumping into some of the ugly old ones ;)
Peter Kenyon
elected member, Labour Party NEC - constituency section
Whatever the platform I have misgivings about the Virtual phone Bank being available, both with usability and probably more importantly data protection issues should the phone be lost or stolen
I think it will all occur online and will have a rapid logout if not used for a couple of minutes.
Even if the app is totally secure, I cant see it being practical as you would have to take it away from your ear to enter any responses
Well I downloaded this App and it convinced me that only XXXX were a credible choice at the next election. I mean its a IPHONE APP! If they can produce that then they must be g8
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Meanwhile Alex I wonder who is developing the app for Labour? Lets hope that it wasn't behind the same geniuses who developed the NHS database.
I also wonder if the other parties are developing apps themselves?
The Tories app will no doubt update policy changes as they happen (bandwidth restrictions apply) but cost less than all the other party apps available. I hear a rumour that it will feature a button that airbrushes out any policy you disagree with
The Libdem app will of course go unnoticed to all but the most dedicated politico. Rumour of it having a couple of innovative features though are rife. The first tricks the user into believing Vince Cable knows what he's talking about and the second allows you to divert all calls via Sarah Tethers constituency office.
The iPhone app is not designed to get people voting Labour. It's to help campaigners contact voters.
So the demographics of iPhone use amongst core Labour voters (or the ability of an app to persuade someone to vote) don't appear to be relevant.
The other alternative is that the Labour party did some market research to see what the most popular phone was, and wrote an app for that platform. If that is the case, then kudos to Labour campaigners for being hip and cool and just like the guys on [Spooks] who seem inseparable from their Apple computers (no product placement on the BBC, my arse!).
But hey, I am a software developer for a different platform, so maybe I am just biassed.
Of course Labour have targeted a minority platform iPhone is 14% of the global smartphone market (Blackberry is 21%, Nokia have 44%). That's the *smartphone* market, the basic phone market is considerably bigger. So apps like this are really intended for journos and party activists. Labour could have targeted far more people by writing a Java app or Symbian spp, but they would not be so *cool*.
Oh you might find this funny - I work at a company that was seriously considering writing a mobile app for general consumption for blackberry ( and blowing about 60 grand in the process, taking time away from more important areas) specifically because the minister who might be previewing the system has a black berry.. How we laughed !!
On coolness, Does any one think that arranging labour orientated events or ministers communicating with the public using facebook is a good idea? In the light of the fact that all of the personal data used by Labour MPs (personal messages etc.) would be freely available to administrators of the site, who hold no loyality to the labour party.
Watch the proverbial crap hit the fan when a devious individual sells a stack database data to a news paper.