Bored of Scrabulous and Zombies on Facebook? How about poking a politician instead?
The Conservatives have launched their own Facebook application to encourage people to become members of the party.
Voters who sign up to become a 'friend of the Conservatives' will receive regular updates and advice on getting involved.
In what the party says is an echo of the way Radiohead sold their In Rainbows album, people can pay as much, or as little, as they want to become a Conservative supporter.
The site includes a link to a video which has been put together by film director and Mr Claudia Schiffer, Matthew Vaughn.
Vaughn, who directed Layer Cake, has also been taken on as a ‘creative consultant’ to the party.
Westminster on the web
Using social networking sites to drum up political support is already having a huge impact on the Presidential elections in the US.
Candidates like Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Ron Paul credit much of their support and fundraising effort to the number of supporters they've picked up through the web.
In the UK more and more politicians are following suit. The Conservatives say this current campaign has been inspired by what’s happening in America. Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said the party wanted to be "the groundbreakers in British politics".
Other parties have a presence on the web too. The Liberal Democrats have already got a Facebook application which gives members information and updates. The group’s been online since 2006.
The party says it has the highest proportion of its MPs on the site. A spokesman told Newsbeat that it’s been “active on Facebook from the start”.
Labour too has its own Facebook group page which has been going for six months.
A spokesman for their party said they've been active in the online world for years, carrying out Prime Ministerial interviews on YouTube and the like.
Individual politicians have created their own Facebook pages too, although Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg is the only party leader who has a personal facebook profile.
Into the internet
It’s not just Facebook which the politicians have been logging on to either. Many now have their own MySpace pages.
During last year’s race to replace John Prescott as Labour’s deputy leader, many of the candidates signed up to the site, although it doesn’t look like they’ve logged on much since.
Watching on the web
Politicians are all trying to get seen online too and all the parties have channels on YouTube. On David Cameron's own website “webcameron” you can see the Tory leader's musings from his kitchen table.
On the Downing Street channel you can even watch Gordon Brown meet Simon Cowell and erm, Britain's Got Talent's opera-singing winner Paul Potts.
But will it make a difference?
The big question is whether more activity online is actually getting more people interested in politics? There’s been little research into the issue.
Last year a study from Hitwise, an organisation which monitors internet use, suggested that the link between the internet and politics isn’t as strong as people might think. According to the research, people who are on sites such as MySpace are the least likely to vote.
In the US there are claims that the online campaigning by candidates such as Barack Obama is getting more young people to turn up to events and go out and vote.
With more and more campaigning being done in cyberspace it will be interesting to see how it develops in the coming months and years in the lead up to the next UK general election.
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