Vancouver Secrets

OnProbation.ca – Miserable Failure

Here’s a look inside the Liberal party’s great website that was created to keep track of the Conservatives while they were on Iggy’s imposed probation …

Working with you to keep the government on track

We deserve transparency and accountability from our government so that we can address this economic crisis responsibly and plan for our recovery. Canadians want the facts. That’s why we’ve built this site. You can help us keep the government on track.

So far the site has been a roaring success…

Since March 16, 2009 there have been over 5,000 views of the above video – featured on the home page.

Other great features of the site:

- They have twitter:

following 544, Followed by 331.

In twitter terms this rates as absolutely dismal. Of note is that the CBC is one of their early followers. Iggy’s twitter is doing better, but with only 8,177 followers he’s an amateur. It’s almost as exciting as Politwitter…

- Facebook:

430 members. Even my niece has more. The site is run by:

• Marc Gendron (University of Toronto)
• Gosia Radaczynska (McGill)
• Matt Campbell (Parliament of Canada) (creator)

Great job guys.

- Alexa Stats:

Bounce rate (users that come and the leave immediately) – 7 day average 100%

Traffic Rank: 1,942,953 (#1 is the highest – this site rates with an typical abandoned website)

Referring sites:
62.50% liberal.ca
37.50% twitter.com (see twitter stats above)

Incoming links (measures a sites popularity) 108

The site probably took $10-$20,000 to build (or $60-$100,000 to a Liberal party friend), doesn’t get the basics of SEO, and if it were mine, I’d fire whoever is behind the marketing of it.

- Interactive job losses around the country map: not sure what the point of his page is.

Last week Statistics Canada reported another 61,000 net job losses in March, pushing the national unemployment rate to 8 per cent, the highest we’ve seen in seven years. Since peaking in October 2008, employment has fallen each month, putting 357,000 Canadians out of work. We’ve launched this interactive map to help illustrate this, and to help track job losses across the country since the election. You can help.

No update on the copy since March… and exactly how can I help?

- My favorite is Ask The Prime Minister.

you actually can’t ask a question and they have populated the page with questions any smart Liberal should be asking… and you vote for the top ones. Oh, you get to vote three times.  Combined votes approx 4,000.

3 votes left! What happens if I run out? (the link doesn’t work – found hidden in the code: You can change your votes by clicking on them)

How can you help this miserable site?

Have a good idea for the web site? We want to hear about it.

Send us your data, graphs or articles and after we fact-check all the materials, we’ll see how we can integrate your ideas. One thing we do ask is that you include sources for all your data.

If you prefer to reach us by email, you can find us at info@onprobation.ca. This is also a good idea if you’d like to submit several different types of files. While we may not be able to respond to every message we receive, we do promise to read each and every one.

Unfortunately, all of the ideas submitted so far haven’t been deemed good enough to get shown.

This initiative was Iggy’s way of showing his leadership potential as the leader of the opposition. If this is any gauge of the Liberal Party’s ‘net savvy… nothing to worry about here.