A few months ago there was a Recommended diary named "Netroots 101" which was written for the new candidate looking to put together a website. In the article and comments, there were lots of good suggestions for how a candidate can go about courting the netroots, and the essential elements of a netroots-friendly website.
Today I'd like to go one step further and ask all you campaign workers and volunteers, while it's still fresh in your minds, what would you like to see added to the perfect campaign website? What are those "I wish we had ..." or "If only there were ..." moments of genius that have come to you in a brainstorm during the last few months?
What follows are a few of my ideas, plus a request for you to add your suggestions. Don't just think about things you've seen once or twice, try to go beyond what you think is doable and come up with ideas that just might be possible.
For example, during the last campaign I worked on, there was a request for some sort of calendaring application. Since then I've experimented a bit with WebDAV and iCal synchronizing calendars. I think this is the most important and underused campaign tool. Both your supporters and the media can benefit greatly by having your schedule at their fingertips. Beyond the public application, a campaign can also use this tool internally to schedule staff meetings, etc. This is an example of a tool that not only increases public communications but also can be very effective at keeping the campaign on track.
The next must-have for 2008 is the SMS Text Message. If you're building a campaign website and you're not thinking about using texting, you need to take a fresh look. Again, for both public and internal use, the text message can put everyone on the same page.
Speaking of cell phones, it would be good to have a website that can detect the browser and pare down the website for visitors surfing on their phones. An extension to this is 3GP streaming video. I don't have a fancy phone so I don't know how much this feature would get used, but I do think live video streams are underrated, certainly as election day nears and information becomes more time-sensitive.
I'm reaching the conclusion that email broadcasts are so 2006. I think the more we can move away from email based communications for things that don't need it, the better. Already I'm receiving a ton of campaign emails, and none of them contain any kind of granular information, i.e., because only a fraction of voters live in a state where Candidate_X is visiting this week, no one will get an alert that (s)he'll be in their vicinity for a campaign stop.
User preferences now becomes a paramount importance. Whereas most campaign sites have tools for tracking supporters' preferences, they tend to focus on how that supporter relates to the campaign, like do they want a yard sign, are they a volunteer, etc. The next generation website ought to have better tailored user preferences, such as an opt-in for text messages, opt-in for news alerts vs. scheduled news updates - things which make it a richer experience for the user...
... Things like Personal Fundraising. This is another area that I'm not too into, but I understand the potential for people to get excited about this tool. Do you use group-fundraising tools like party2win, personal actblue pages, or the one at Bill Richardson's site? Is this an important tool or is it just something that makes the finance team feel good?
Blog. Does a campaign even really want a blog? I have yet to see one that got used, plus, the idea of a blog is to encourage reader comments, not likely with the level of paranoia running through most campaigns. I'm all for a diary chronicling events and stuff, but when is a blog not a blog and just some constantly updated section of the website?
Chat and Instant Messaging. Thought about them, don't need 'em.