Friday, August 06, 2010

You Can Surf to Murph Now

Allllll right! The third MA treasurer's website is finally and long overdue populated.

I'd bemoaned the unfortunate here and here. Murphy's folk couldn't get it together. I had more or less given up, but checked today to find the real thing.

He has it three-quarters together. A couple of sections are still weak, but it's fully functional. It includes:
  • Slow-loading but attractive opening splash
  • Meet Steve tab with a bio
  • Vision tab as a proxy for a platform/issues/positions
  • News with links to articles and sound or video
  • Events probably for scheduled public appearances
  • Contact tab with donate, volunteer, and spread-the-word (social media sharing) buttons
Splash. This is fine, replete with the recurring latest tweet, and links to Facebook, Twitter and RSS following, as well as the tabs, buttons and links to news articles. Here, he might want to the the odd GET INVOLVED slide in the slide show that hyperlinks to the major tabs above. That slide features three cute female teens.

Meet Steve. This is good but not great. It has gray text and no art. It's content is solid though, giving you reasons to find him competent and fiscally savvy.

Vision. We can hope he's not finished with this one. Most politically interested sorts will expect a platform with specifics here, like at Steve Grossman's version. Murphy has covered a LITE set of statements with no detail or proposals. This needs substance.

News. In fairness, Murphy as not gotten huge press, but this has some good stuff. There are pieces that include praise from some newspapers, as well as one TV and one radio clip. I think he probably has as much blog coverage. I can feign hurt that he didn't include our Left Ahead! podcast, wherein he comported and presented himself well. It's his judgment on what content serve his image best.

Events. This is empty and should not have gone live without a few appearances and such. I know from his FB and tweets that he has content for this. He needs to populate it quickly to show that he is out there working for this office.

Contact. This section is complex and well done. The buttons link properly and present relevant forms and choices. The Spread the Word button pops up a list of social media to share the site; some will have no idea what to do with this, but that's a peril of the moment. The Donate button is slick and simple; they use PayPal too — smart, although there's a mailing address on the page as well. The Volunteer button brings up a simple form with a nice set of choices of various levels of involvement.

Overall, with the exceptions of the underpopulated areas, this is totally adequate.

This election cycle, the down-ticket races are unusually important, particularly for treasurer and secretary of the commonwealth. We have a shot at updating and upgrading so-so offices that affect all of us.

I'm delighted that all three treasurer candidates are decked out now. Bring on the debates!

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