Andrew Keen Won’t Tell You What Brown and Cameron Can Learn From Obama Networking

In today’s Independent, Andrew Keen, the curmudgeonly Internet entrepreneur turned media apocalypse foghorn, rather charmingly apes a recent BAD IDEA blog post by Ben Beaumont-Thomas. However, if he’d read Ben’s piece, he might have bothered to do a little more research. 

Keen’s article, entitled ‘What Brown and Cameron Should Learn from Obama’s Internet-savvy Campaign’… er… doesn’t mention Gordon Brown or David Cameron once, and instead twitters on about the Huffpost, CNN blogs, and YouTube viral videos, before concluding that the lesson British politicians should learn from Obama is “the net has contributed to giving millions of Americans a new sense of ownership and involvement with Obama.”

Like, wow – I mean, totally!

(I’m going to give you a couple of seconds here to take in the enormity of Keen’s statement. Breathe in. Out. Good). 

Seriously, Brown and Cameron must be slapping their foreheads in wonder at why they never mined this new media gold themselves.

You mean we could actually own these suckers, and all we have to do is make some YouTube videos? Adios Deripaska, voters will LOVE this amateur mobile phone-cam film of my kids eating cereal…

Yep, seen that movie before. Sadly, Keen’s rejection of old media mores extends to not boning up on subjects you’re supposed to be an authority on, otherwise he’d know that Brown and Cameron have been making babysteps into the social networking sphere for some time now. As Ben B-T pointed out in his blog though, the barrier our politicians face in their attempts to achieve Total Web Dominance is the inconvenient fact that the Great British public would generally rather disown their entire political class than “have ownership” of them. Furthermore, the prospect of a fireside YouTube chat with The First Black President or even the Caribou Barbie holds considerably more appeal to British –  or Mongolian or Venusian, for that matter – readers than the prospect of listening to any one of Brown, Cameron, Clegg, Balls, Darling, Cooper, Osborne, Milliband, Hague, Kelly, Straw, Burnham, Cable, etc. etc. droning on about why that other lot are a bunch of hideous charlatans in a three minute online address. 

In summary: if you want some real insight into how social networking is being used in British (or American) politics, check this out, if you want to read yet more Cult of the Amateur, click here. 

(Also, a quick note to any other British politicians looking to mindlessly clone Obama’s Internet magic box: mad Israeli politician Benjamin Netanyahu has planted his flag on that particular planet, so don’t even go there unless you’re prepared to go full-retard.)

Posted by Jack Roberts in Creative Economy | November 17, 2008 11:04AM |