notes from across the pond

After a sluggish start, Rudy Giuliani’s campaign continues to make strides online. They have now added an interactive Google map to the ‘Why Rudy’ section of the former New York mayor’s website.

The map shows the location of Rudy’s supporters across the US, including recent official endorsements from Texas Governor, Rick Perry, and former Wisconsin Governor, Tommy Thompson. Supporters can fill in a form to add their names, comments, photos and YouTube videos, explaining why they support Rudy. So far, there does not appear to be one genuine supporter’s video (i.e. one not filmed and uploaded by Rudy’s campaign team)

Unsurprisingly, the majority of Rudy’s supporters are concentrated in the wider North East region and California and Florida. As this tool becomes more widely used, it will be interesting to see where concentrations of Rudy supporters build up.

The Adfero Group produced a similar tool for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s virtual march on Washington earlier this year. Given that the Adfero Group have already done some work for Rudy’s campaign, I think it’s safe to assume they adapted and built on the same tool for Rudy’s benefit.

Although I welcome this innovation and acknowledge that it does go some way to building a sense of community amongst Rudy’s supporters, as well as serving a valuable data gathering function, I think it could be even more effective if it was not so isolated. It seems very disconnected from the rest of Rudy’s campaign. It sits on its own, on a single page, without even a link from the homepage.

Why not post the map in the sidebar of Rudy’s blog to show the mayor’s ever growing support or allow supporters to embed the map on their own websites? Rudy’s campaign was one of the first to produce widgets for supporter’s websites. Why not produce another to make it easy for supporters to share their reasons for supporting Rudy?

Isolating the map on a single page massively reduces the opportunities for supporter interaction and decreases its effectiveness as a campaign tool significantly. Come on Rudy, just one more step…