New Media: Why our new e-minister needs an internet lesson

He might be best known as the man behind Geri Halliwell's unfortunate party political appearance serving tea to Tony Blair, but the new e-minister, Douglas Alexander, certainly seems to have a lot to learn about the internet as well.

In accordance with election rules, his's website (www. dalexandermp.demon.co.uk) shut up shop for the duration of the general election, but while he put up a closed sign on the front door he left all the windows and back door open. If you bother to hike round the long way to places such as www.dalexandermp.demon.co .uk/html/pressrel.html you can get to every nook and cranny of the site, bar the home page.

Whether he has broken the rules I couldn't say, but the 34-year-old ex-lawyer and MP for Paisley South has rarely, if ever, been heard espousing the virtues of e-business, the internet or technology ­ unlike his big sister, Wendy, who is e-minister for Scotland and very clued up on e-issues. Perhaps she will be able to give little brother some tips on website design and hosting.

Some commentators are worried that Alexander has been given the position merely as a stepping stone towards the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry job, the career path recently travelled by Patricia Hewitt. Let's hope he takes a bit more care over the finer details during his time as e-minister than he does with his website.

Mouse-clicking good

Kentucky Fried Chicken has become the latest high street brand to try viral e-mail marketing. Big companies often send out quirky e-mails to their employees and then wait for them to disobey any "e-mail is for business and not personal use" rules, forward them to friends and, hey presto, they have a very cheap marketing campaign.

The KFC e-mail involves an online wrestling match (www.kfcwrestleclub.com) between Hulk Hunger and Tummy Rumble to support a new sandwich promotion, and links to the wrestling theme of the TV ad.

The problem with e-mail viral marketing campaigns, though, is that they can easily go wrong. Image attachments within e-mails are often hurriedly looked at while bosses are out getting coffee and are deleted instantly for fear of making rickety old PCs crash and thus getting you in trouble with the IT department. They are rarely viewed at leisure.

I fondly remember the viral e-mail sent round which depicted a chicken head encased in batter, sitting happily in a McDonald's container. But because it was a chicken's head everyone went round laughing and japing about that "hilarious KFC e-mail". It probably made KFC want to pull the heads off a few more chickens.

And the winner is ...

The weekly new media magazine New Media Age threw its awards ceremony in a tent last Thursday evening, or the tent-like venue known as Planit 2000 (so last year) near Liverpool Street in London. Not for cost-cutting purposes, I'm assured, although money was certainly on the minds of some of the attendees.

During a walkabout in the audience by host Richard Blackwood, a nameless representative of hemscott.net grabbed the mike and boomed, "Forget this Bloomberg nonsense, forget this FT.com nonsense, visit hemscott.net ...oh, and buy our ads because we need the money."

High spirits were soon dampened by the appearance at half-time by a very scary woman called Wanda from the Daily Draw, who was giving away a £1,000 prize to a lucky ticketholder. Her opening gambit to the rather boisterous crowd was "Shut the fuck up". A source close to the trembling winner, a bigwig from Superdrug.com who had to go and collect his prize from Wanda, was overheard noting gloomily that he was probably the richest man in the room.

But it all ended on a high note when a year of tragedy for farmers was given a boost by the awarding of the overall Grand Prix to business portal Globalfarmers (www. globalfarmers.com) for its depth of coverage and the fact that since its launch in January it has beaten all competition hands down.

The answer? Search me

A few weeks back, I mentioned the launch of a new SMS-based betting service that used voice commands to place a bet rather than text messages. It seems the human touch is being roped in to more online services than ever before.

No surprises then that it has hit the search engine world, which at best throws up only an 80 per cent success rate, with most results causing more confusion than clarity. MSN.co.uk has just plonked Infofast's research service into its site, a service which charges users to pose their questions, such as "I would like an up-to-the-minute share price comparison between two leading high street retailers". The answer includes not only the current price, but the 52-week highs and lows, best share price, closing price and market capitalisation, I'm told, all for £2.50 (the price varies according to the depth of the question).Real live humans scour the internet and 2,000 databases and provide the requested information within minutes via telephone, fax, e-mail and, of course, SMS.

The company is hoping to sell this product on to retailers to combat the low conversion rates on e-commerce, so that Infofast's researchers are employed to act as sales assistants. "The problem with e-commerce is you can't ask questions or interact with the store. You wouldn't buy from a store where you are totally ignored, would you?" asks Martin Kelly, chief executive at Infofast. Well, yes, actually. He obviously doesn't go shopping in my neighbourhood very often.

Lisa.Simmons@haynet.com