Prompt's TechBlog

The London Mayoral Elections are just hours away. Soon we'll see the end of the slagging match that has been taking place between the candidates over the last few months.

The manifestos of the three main candidates, Boris Johnson, Ken Livingstone and Brian Paddick, are all pretty similar, coming down to a bendy bus here or a congestion charge reduction there, so it seems likely that this election will be won on personality. With this in mind, it's interesting to look at Prompt's new report (PDF) into the online community's reactions to the mayoral election.

The study examined the online reaction to mayoral candidates across a wide sphere of blogs, podcasts and community generated online media. It appears that bloggers tend to focus on the negative, with Johnson and Livingstone receiving significantly more negative posts than positive. Examining the ratio of positive and negative comments would seem to point to a win for Paddick. 31% of the posts that mentioned Paddick were positive and only 23% were negative. But, as the polls show, Paddick is unlikely to win.

Also interesting is the sheer number of mentions the candidates got, with Boris Johnson storming to the lead with more than three times as many mentions as Paddick. It's easy to guess why - with his bleached mop of hair, his to-the-point speech, and his bumbling appearances on comedy show Have I Got News For You, Johnson has a reputation of being a shambolic toff.

Johnson also received the least number of positive posts of the three candidates, Even so, many people expect him to win.

Prompt's report, London Mayoral Elections 2008 - Reactions from the online community, is already generating coverage and discussion in media outlets, including IT Pro.

The report can be downloaded by clicking here (PDF).