Tim Montgomerie and the Conservative Home team were quickly out of the traps on Tuesday night with a video response to Gordon Brown's "cuts, cuts, cuts" speech at the TUC.
Slickly and quickly made, uploaded onto YouTube and embedded across the right-wing blogosphere (and here!), it's the shape of things to come - from all sides of the political spectrum.
It's easy to forget that the digital world looked very different last time around.
But remember that when the 2005 General Election campaign kicked off, YouTube was barely a month old.
Just as significant, it wasn't until June of that year that broadband overtook dial-up as the most common means of accessing the internet in UK homes.
We just weren't ready for it.
Fast forward four and half years, throw in the lessons from last year's Obama-McCain contest in the US and it's clear that video with bite and purpose - embeddable and spreadable - will become an election staple.
Jon Bernstein is a freelance writer and digital media consultant. He is the former multimedia editor for Channel 4 News, editor-in-chief of Directgov and editor-in-chief of silicon.com.
He also blogs at jonbernstein.wordpress.com
And this is Labour's version. Remarkably similar idea, but the execution is nowhere near as effective. Quotes are too long, music's a bit lame.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmSdwL3Dj58
Posted by: Graham H | Sep 17, 2009 at 10:46