March 2007 - Free campaign advice In this issue A successful campaign site needs careful planning and constant attention, from determining the audience to concluding the campaign. Read on to find out more about the ten stages in the life of a campaign site. This issue also contains of a review of Web Campaigning, a major new study of US election campaign websites, and a portfolio section describing the latest Radagast Solutions web projects. Campaign site lifecycle Successful campaign websites usually require careful planning and implementation - they rarely happen by accident. Good content, a well thought-out campaign strategy, effective supporter mobilisation, and site promotion are the four key elements of a successful campaign site. Selecting an audience, determining allies, developing resources and actions, launching, promoting and moderating your site, and a strong conclusion are just some of the critical stages in the life of a campaign site. Read the full article to find out more about these critical stages Web Campaigning review Web Campaigning is a major new academic study from MIT Press on how US election campaigns have used the Internet over the past decade. US election campaign sites have evolved dramatically from an early site which simply contained the words "Jim is a wonderful guy" to today's elaborate sites containing video clips, daily blog entries, event calendars, volunteer recruitment and much more. Web Campaigning contains a treasure trove of ideas and information and also provides a useful division of current web campaign practices into four major categories: informing, involving, connecting and mobilizing. Read the full review Portfolio Just World, the community site of Trocaire, the Irish development agency, was launched on 20 February. Radagast Solutions built Just World as an Elgg/Drupal hybrid, using OpenID to seamlessly fuse the two popular web applications. Just World contains enhanced profile pages, a membership directory, personal file management, blogs, flexible access control, a CSS-based skin switcher and a simple front page content management system from Elgg, as well as private messaging, polling, a guestbook function and live chat from Drupal. A public demo version of this software with many of these features is set up here. If you'd like to explore the demo site, you can register here. In addition to this community site, Radagast Solutions also built a number of campaign tools for Trocaire's gender equality campaign site including a petition and ecard system. Petition signers are assigned a residence in a virtual global village, which symbolises Trocaire's goal for a more equal, just and peaceful world in which women have a prominent role in education, health, commerce and decision making. In the next issue In the next issue we'll take a look at the most recent versions of Drupal, Elgg and phpList and some relevant plugins, modules and extensions available for these popular open source applications. CAMPAIGN SOLUTIONS   About Kevin Jardine   experienced Internet campaigner   Need some help?   Internet campaign advice and magic SELECTED LINKS StumbleUpon Some listings here can give a rocket burst to your site traffic BlogHer Where the woman bloggers are Avaaz Global Internet campaigning site with ambitious goals Yahoo YUI Popular, powerful and easy to use Javascript library FUN FACT In an announcement that may help set the direction for future development of the Internet, Bill Gates has endorsed OpenID. The decentralised identity protocol makes it much easier for users to share their contact details and other information across the Web, and can be used to seamlessly merge features from multiple applications.