10 Downing Street Blog - sort of

The freshly re-launched website for the British Prime Minister at Number10.gov.uk is using the leading blog platform Wordpress to create a regularly updateable site that integrates a range of multi-media and social media tool. (My two blogs are both self-hosted Wordpress blogs)

The main page shows a Top Story and below it, the Latest News from No.10 in a scrolling reverse date order layout - like most blogs. It is updated pretty much every day, sometimes more than once. But for those hoping to learn what Gordon Brown had for breakfast will be disappointed. It’s not Gordy’s personal blog but rather a site where the latest official news from the Prime Minister’s office can be posted up quickly and easily. Each post or news update is tagged for easy searchability and there are buttons you can click on to share the posts that grab your attention on Facebook, Delicious or Digg. However, there’s no option to add your comment so there is no real blog-like interactivity.

The “blog” serves as a hub for the other PM’s other multi-media activities. There is a link in the sidebar to the latest photos on Downing Street Flickr page where you can see Mr Brown strutting his stuff at press conferences, meeting the public and shaking hands with other politicos. None of him in his shirt sleeves doing a spot of gardening.

You can also click through to the Downing Street YouTube channel which has videos of the PM on foreign visits, sending a Ramadan message and making speeches. So far, so “ho hum”. But there’s an interesting attempt at reaching out to the people via the “Ask the PM” initiative where Mr Brown will be “responding to the most popular questions submitted by the YouTube community.” Apparently, people have already left questions and the PM “will be back in September with his answers” - but I can’t seem to find the videos of those who asked the questions and I can’t easily work out which videos of Mr Brown currently on the site are answers to YouTubers’s questions. Can anyone give me some pointers on this?

I think my favourite of all the these social media initiatives is the Downing Street Twitter feed - it’s a bit less impersonal than the other to-be-expected press release/ photo shoot/ sound bite style multi-media offerings as you can get a little bit of the voice of the staffer who is behind the tweets, although most of the the updates are still fairly formal in tone.

Of course you wouldn’t expect the official website of the British Prime Minister to maintain a certain distance and dignity - and to be filled with official content. What is significant I think is the use of a blogging platform such as Wordpress as the host for the site and the dissemination of the multi-media content across video-sharing and micro-blogging sites to reach an audience that might not otherwise sit down and read the papers or watch the news on TV. It is a great example of thinking outside the box and using the technology because it’s the right tool regardless of what that technology is called - see my discussion of how misconceptions about “blogging” can limit your communication toolbox in A Blog by an other Name

For more commentary on the Downing Street “blog” from various bloggers, see:

Neville Hobson (blogger, podcaster and business communicator) - New 10 Downing Street site runs Wordpress

Simon Dickson, principal consultant at web and online communications firm Puffbox (which also inputted into the site) - Sneak preview of new Number10 site

Photo: from number10.gov.uk