.mobi Australia’s PM-ELECT had a .MOBI campaign site. The OUTGOING Prime Minister DIDN'T

[Mobi Cheap]

OK, clearly the reason why John Howard lost so badly wasn't exactly his failure to use the power of .mobi. But it doesn't have to be 'the reason' in order to be an indication that there were probably other trends that he overlooked as well - after more than a decade at the helm.

Today’s post in mTLD's official blog (which BTW refers to the post title below, not to the provocative but reportedly factual thread title above) starts as follows:

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01 December 2007

.mobi: Changing the Course of Politics

The title of this post is (playfully) overblown but it is interesting to see the recent Australian election results in which incumbent John Howard lost to Kevin Rudd. Among the many differences between the two candidates, the one that interests me is that one had a .mobi site and one didn't. Which one? The winner: Kevin Rudd with kevin07.mobi.
…..
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Link to full article:
http://dotmobi.typepad.com/dotmobi/2007/12/mobi-changing-t.html

The mTLD blog of course doesn’t go into any controversial areas.

But according to The Times (the original one, the one that is 222 years old but already produces tailor made mobile content for its .mobi site ) there are global lessons from the Australian elections:

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Writing about last weekend’s Australian poll, in which the former cabinet minister [Alan Milburn] helped Labor overturn the previous four election successes of John Howard, Milburn says there are lessons to be learnt “in any country”… Milburn says Howard lost because “a sense of arrogant invincibility” crept into his government.

“Howard lost because he ran out of ideas and got out of touch,” Milburn writes. “He thought he could overcome ‘time for change’ … by relying on the strength of the economy but he couldn’t come up with a compelling agenda for the future.”

“After 11 years in office, people were bothered less by what had been achieved in the past and more about what his plans were for the future”.
…
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Link to full article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2983851.ece

Could this be a cautionary tale applicable in other areas - not just politics:?

 

[domainitrix]

1.Yayyy mobi was useful in winning campaign.

2.Hope ,for the sake of our Australian friends in the forum , Mr. Rudd will do good for his country.

Lastly,

Could this be a cautionary tale applicable in other areas - not just politics:?

LOL, for above, we need a special tongue-in-cheek emoticon made up just for you MC. Thanks for the great article and spot on analysis as usual.

 

[DomainTalker]

Yes, as an Aussie, I can say that Rudd attracted 40% of the youth vote - and that made a huge difference....

Lots of reasons, of course, why a very economically successful govt lost the election - but, one of them was a perception of youthful vigour of Rudd v the older Howard......and, Rudd played the 'man of the future' v 'man of the past' card very well...


...They both used YouTube & MySpace and other channels to reach people....Rudd also used .mobi....

Bottom line is, neither were all that well received in these mediums, judging by news stories about them....It provoked lots of youthful satire & sending up of politicians on blogs etc...


...But, in Australia, its mandatory to vote...so you have to vote...and when the young voted - they voted for Rudd & minor parties (Greens etc)...


But, .mobi was in there...

.

 

[connections]

This has nothing to do with why Kevin Rudd won I never even saw this URL in the campaign not once.

Kevin Rudd sucks, he has no political experience if you are Australian and actually care about the country or know about economics and the background of politics in australia you would never have voted labor.

Overall its good they purchased a mobi I guess, but I never saw it in their campaign?

If some one did where was it :S