MP websites need some ‘2.0’

What is it with the websites of most, if not all, members of parliament? They’re shockingly bad.


And it wouldn’t take much to make them a little better. Here’s a few things they should add:

1. Interaction

Most MPs have a twee little form somewhere on their website that allows users to email them. Others just list their email (or constituency/office) addresses.

Did Facebook not happen? Was Twitter a dream? Allow users to comment on your website. And comment back. In fact, make this your home page and actually put the public at the heart of your presence online.

And don’t forget to comment back. And maybe you could add a little rating system so users can let you know what they think of your feedback and the outcomes you’ve got for them - positive, negative or neutral.

2. Live updates and real-time feedback

It’s a shame that a lot of MP websites have just a description of where they are from, who they represent and tell us a little fact about them that makes us feel like they could be human.

Some have cleverly put a news section in.

Forget that. People have become accustomed to receiving updates in 140 characters or less. So draw your Twitter stream (wait, you’re not on Twitter yet?) into your website. Or create your own micro-update section where you can post things like: ‘Got an hour left til the big vote on something that really effects you’ and, better still, as questions: ‘How would you vote?’, ‘What do you think?’ - can it really hurt that much?

3. Expense claims

Because that was a big thing a few years back and a few MPs half-heartedly tried to show they were open about them by publishing the details in a spreadsheet on their website.

Does any member of the general public download spreadsheets and and fully understand them? I generally don’t.

Make expense claims a major section of the site with each claim getting a brief description, amount and why you are spending taxpayer money. Maybe even open it up to user comments - because, like it or not, we all have comments to make.

Digital things for local media

Local newspapers probably aren’t going to do very well in the coming years if they keep thinking of themselves as local newspapers and not local media.

And that should be a little bit liberating, because what you can do digitally is far less limited than what you can in print - but this isn’t a web vs print idea.

In fact, as local media start to think of themselves as such, the services they can provide to locals are fare more varied.

When I leave London for home up north, I know I can’t use public transport. I don’t know which buses go where - apart from maybe two routes.

I can look on Google, but that’s huge. It covers the whole earth, how can they stay on top of the changes? How can I trust they’ve got the most up-to-date information on data on my little northern town?

Enter local media. If I know there’s an organisation that can help me navigate a local area - whether that be its news, its traffic, the routes its public transport takes, good places to eat, dentists to avoid, etc - trust in the information it provides will come more easily than it does in an app that crowdsources information and opinion from Twitter or Wikipedia.

Local newspapers, or other local news outlets, should offer the full package. Team up, merge, collaborate and tell me how to get in to town from where I’m currently standing.

Rewarding passiveness in online news

I’ve recently started to read more newspapers. And I know more.

What’s missing from the internet that is apparent in printed product is the passive selection of what we read: we might not think we have an interest in something but, because it’s there, we read it and learn more about it.

When we’re online, we tend to actively select what we think we’ll find interesting.

Perhaps, to encourage us into passive selection, news websites should operate in two ways. One encouraging us to move through its headlines in an analogue, linear way like we do a physical newspaper and the other for the active selector. Maybe offering more content or removing/reducing paywalls if we take the longer route.

Could it work?

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