This all started with a friendly email letting me know about a relaunched online presence for a political consulting firm here in Washington.

Click the picture above to see a large version in a new window

I clicked the link to their web in the email my first introduction to this shining star was …tahdah…a 404 error. The same thing happened with the other link too.

I was irritated and amused by the fact that they were tracking my visit to their site, they were also tracking whether or not I was dowloading the Flash player. Guys, there is an implied social contract if you are going to track my navigation, then you should take me to the site I want to go to. Tracking stats on a 404 page really isn’t going to do either one of us any good now, is it? Oh, and rather that sending me to Adobe’s main download page where I have to pick from a big list of things to download. Why not send me to the specific product (Flash) that I need to download?

Given that, I’m starting a new feature here on the blog - Political Site of the Week.

DISCLAIMER - Political Site of the Week is merely a vanity title. No awards or prizes will be presented. The name Political Site of the Week should not be taken as an indication that there will be a new site chosen weekly, or even on a regularly scheduled basis. All Political Sites of the Week are chosen purely at my whim. All opinions presented about any Political Site of the Week are my own or those of my evil minions, and not that of any candidates, committees, charities, circuses, clubs, cinemas, companies or crafty car salesmen.

Now, back to the Political Site of the Week.

They’ve taken a page from the 2003 playbook (will democrats ever catch on) and launched an irritating, accessibilty challenged, Flash based website (for the sake of using Flash) featuring some of their old media achievements.

After more carefully considering the design, I overestimated the newness of the idea by a decade. The book on the Northwest Passage website looks hauntingly like the journals we all read while playing the game Myst back in 1993. Can someone call Cyan Worlds (creators of Myst) and tell them someone has filled Atrus’ journal with a bunch of stuff that looks like old Powerpoint slides. I always like to give out the props to my northside hometown homeboyz.

I’m a fan of Flash, it can be a great experience to have it on a site if it is used well. But if you are going to make your site so bandwidth heavy that anyone not using a broadband connection is locked out, then give me a compelling reason to stay. Try doing your company profiles as video rather that just “artsy” headshots and a couple yawnworthy paragraphs that I have to scroll through. If you have a promo piece tied to a particular event, give audio or footage from the event, jazz things up a bit. I’ve got plenty more ideas where those came from, to make the site more cutting edge, rather than just using Flash to make the layout a litle less static. But as the folks as Northwest Passage are well aware, consultants don’t come free. If anyone out there needs help with new media, I know an LLC for you. Send me e-mail at Doug dot Dobbins at Gmail dot Com.

Here is what you get if you don’t have Flash installed.

Well at least the link takes you directly to the Flash Player download unlike the mail that was sent out.

I’d also recommend a low bandwidth version of the site so people who are on less than 256kbps DSL (and 256 DSL isn’t that fast either) connections (more people than you might guess) can actually get some value from that site. You could also make the low bandwidth version to people who are using adaptive technology, like screen readers. I did not run JAWS on the site but I did find that the tab order could be better. Or then again you might be writing off the people with physical challenges and the people who don’t have fast internet connections. If this is the case, you could call this strategy “Blue towers version 2.” But within the last two years I have seen a candidate who’s challenger had sight issues, so if they do a client’s site like this, they could risk the challenger making ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) claims, at the very least a juicy press story. I use Flash based video and audio players on my own site but a large part of the content is still available if you don’t have flash or if it isn’t practical to use it due to bandwidth issues.

In their rebirth announcement cum email, they mention that their previous website was shabby yet functional. They have made the up?grade to an over produced site that doesn’t give me more than a thimble’s worth of information about what they really do. One thing that new media (what I do) and old media (what they say they do) have in common is the need to clearly communicate the message that the client is trying to get across. As a potential client, this trainwreck of a sentence would not give me any confidence:

“Indeed, there is something a bit odd about a firm that produces graphics, develops messages and designs general presentations with its own website that looks a little, well, amateurish.”

I won’t go through the fifth grade excercise of diagramming the sentence, but I would be interested in learn how they produce graphics, develop messages and design general presentations with their website. I’m being pretty picky, picky know but when the writing is supposed to be a reflection of your professional work, you might want to proofread it. I don’t hold candidates doing blogs, or things of similar scope, to the same standard since there’s a time when the message content is more important than the presentation.

On the top of Northwest Passage’s list of candidates is Maria Cantwell , who has connections to technology, and for whom I hope they plan a more dynamic effort for than what we have seen so far. Mr. Sinderman should know full well by now that in this Washington, every vote counts. After all he has been involved in two campaigns where the election went to recount, Cantwell v. Gorton in 2000 and Gregoire v. Rossi in 2004. Considering what squeakers those were, it might be good practice to find ways to avoid alienating voters before the election, rather than chancing it with the recount gods. After all a modem user or blind voter’s vote counts the same as a vote from a high bandwitch voter based in downtown Seattle. Or it should!

Cantwell’s opponent Mike McGavick has already gotten a presence out there using new media tactics, granted it is a reuse of a 30 second tv spot rather than something specific to new media, but it is a start in the right direction. He’s playing this in Eastern Washington via the online version of the local newspaper, the Spokesman Review. Props to the Spokesman and McGavick campaign for this.

Video will be back soon, once the McGavick campaign gives me a new place to get it from.

The ad above may disappear at the McGavick campaign’s request, but if they are savy, they’ll let it stand since earned media is the best media.

Also, unlike Cantwell, he has a blog, and the site has audio and video. He says he has podcast that I could not find the RSS for on his site but I could find the feed when I did a search in iTunes.

Correction:
I was looking at the Multi Media page for the podcasts. In a comment below, Timothy Goddard from McGavick campaign, points out the podcasts are under the multimedia menu as a drop down. I think the podcasts should be on the Multi Media, just like the other audio and video links are.

The blog RSS feed does have the podcasts but due to invalid charters it is causing podcatchers and RSS readers to choke. So you might need to rework that ASP code a little. Heck this man did not even work for Real, but could make a play that he is the real tech candidate.

I hope that I won’t be needing to do the Serenity Prayer when comes to Democrats and new media in this state forever.

Technorati Tags: New Media, Flash, Northwest Passage, Christian Sinderman, Politics, Washington State, Democrats, GOP, Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, Spokesman Review, Slade Gordon, Cyan Worlds, Myst, Chris Gregoire, Dino Rossi, Democrats, RSS, Podcast