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Brown's Building Britain website fail

More government 2.0 twattery

Gordon Brown is learning, once again, that it takes more than sprinkling some Web2.0 social networking nonsense around to create a political message.

The "Building Britain's Future" website launched in June with modest ambitions. It aimed to be: "the Government’s plan to work with the British people to shape our economic recovery and together build a stronger, fairer and more prosperous country."

But the site has been as successful as previous government Web2.0 twattery like MyLifeMyID, which spent £80,000 finding out that NO2ID campaigners can use the internet.

Building Britain's Future is displaying 25 comments, mostly the usual frothing-mouthed Daily Mail readers you'd expect. Commenter Graham said: "I DONT WANT A WASTE SLOP BUCKET AND YOU CAN KEEP THEM, TWO BINS AND A BLUE BOX IS QUITE SUFFICIENT SO KEEP YOU BUCKET".

A clearer view is offered by Ken Lewis: "Yet again another relaunch of government ideas with absolutely no explanation on how it is going to be paid for or details of how all these wonderful ideas will be implemented."

In total the site received 233 comments, the Cabinet Office told The FT - 25 general comments are currently displayed.

But the government rejected claims that the site was party political or over-expensive. It cost less than £10,000, the paper was told, and was mostly created by internal staff. Still, £10,000 for 233 comments? We think Vulture Towers Strategy Boutique could offer more insight for that kind of money. We could get amanfromMars to write the Labour Manifesto for that kind of cash.

The site's Twitter feed has 256 followers - about the number of consultants and civil servants involved, we reckon.

A related Bebo page, "Big Think", tells us that Michelle Dewbury (remember her from The Apprentice, with the blonde hair?) has been appointed to the judging panel to choose the best entry to Bebo's Big Think competition to "come up with a concrete concept to crack climate change, clamp down on crime and create career opportunities".

What about creating crap as a government communications consultant? ®

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