White House boosts social media apps, by Doug Beizer, FCW.com (Dec 15, 2009).

An application produced at Princeton University that makes it easy to search the Federal Register is an example of the applications White House officials want to see created, McLaughlin [the deputy federal chief technology officer] said. The application, named FedThread, also lets users to sign up to receive alerts about items published in the Federal Register based on keywords.

..."We can make a lot of government data available, but it doesn't really do much good unless apps developers translate it into Web sites, mobile applications or platform apps that really are useful."

Here is an interesting collection of officially unofficial military blogs, facebook, flickr, myspace, and delicious pages, youtube channels, twitter accounts, and more.

• DoD Social Media (Defense.gov "Registered Sites")

So, yes, the National Guard has a facebook page and COCOM - CENTCOM - U.S. Forces Afghanistan has a YouTube channel, but the disclaimer says that that they are not "endorsed" by the DoD and that the DoD does not "exersise any editorial control of the information you may find" [insert ironic "sic" here]. So, Official, but UnOfficial. Registered, but not endorsed. Good sources of information, but unedited. Consistent with the mission, but ... use at your own risk?

The appearance of external hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the United States Department of Defense of the linked web sites, or the information, products or services contained therein. For other than authorized activities as military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) sites, the United States Department of Defense does not exersise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. All links are provided consistent with the mission of Defense.gov.

While these quasi-official social media channels are at least quasi-official, there is even more, less-official, information coming soon. A Twitter thread on Gov 2.0 has been hot recently asking the question, "What if every govt employee have a blog?" and referring to this O'Reilly post: Why Posterous Is a Smart Tool For Informal Government Blogging.

See also: Lost Conversations, Lost Decisions, Lost History.

Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly & Associates) recently observed that Representative Jim Culberson (R-Texas) saw a demonstration of a product called SharedBook at the Gov 2.0 Summit and decided to use it to collect feedback from his constituents on the healthcare bill.

SharedBook is a publishing and annotation program advertised for a variety of purposes, including creation of dynamic documents:

Policy makers, nonprofits, educators, and special-interest communities can use SharedBook's platform to allow their members or constituents to engage in an online dialogue on bills, rules, research and other important documents. Starting with highlighted excerpts from the original content, a series of comments and replies can be posted and shared with any and all interested users to facilitate a pointed and detailed discussion. The source document is locked down and the community discussion is stored and presented back as footnotes at a granular level.

My first reaction to this was that opencongress.org already provides an excellent interface for viewing and commenting on bills before Congress, including the House's health care bill, why go to the trouble of setting it up for this one bill? The answer is that Mr. Culberson is using SharedBook because he wanted comments only from his own constituents.

Here's the press release.

This post follows my September 18th post, Gov 2.0 Expo Showcase: Govies Represent.

The Gov 2.0 Summit, sponsored by O'Reilly Media and TechWeb and held in Washington, DC on September 9th and 10th, was a Big Event--particularly for those who were there. Lots of blogging, lots of tech press coverage. It was full of big tech invitees and priced too high for the average local government webmaster or civic hacker. And me. So this is a view from the outside.

Fortunately, videos from many of the conference sessions are available on the Summit website. You can review the full schedule of sessions and click on "Read more" to link to videos and any other material available for a session. One of the highlights, based on the chatter, was Carl Malamud's By the People... talk. The Summit website does not have it, but the video of Malamud's talk has been posted to his own site and is linked from FGI as a lunchtime listen.

Here is a sampling of some of the videos available:

Rapid Fire: Setting the Stage, esteemed panel presents 2.0 examples

GeoEnabling Gov 2.0, Jack Dangermond, founder and president of ESRI

Creating an Effective Platform, John Markoff of NY Times interviews the father of the Internet, the co-founder of Twitter, and Facebook's DC rep

Based on the tweets, the Gov 2.0 Summit attendees seemed to be genuinely ecstatic about the show and new to many of the existing projects and the landscape of government information. Whether they see a market here is another question.

For more coverage, check out the Summit website's long list of links to news articles about the conference.

Last week's Gov 2.0 Expo conference, run by O'Reilly Media and TechWeb, featured over 25 five-minute presentations by people who have managed government projects -- at all levels of government -- that involve Web 2.0 methods. For the summaries and presentation links related to each speaker, see the full Gov 2.0 Expo schedule; each session title is linked to the relevant information.

In 2.0 participatory fashion, attendees texted to vote for the best presentation in each program segment. The winners were:

City of Santa Cruz Offers Blueprint for Solving CA Budget Crisis with Social Media - Peter Koht (City of Santa Cruz)
txts 4 africa - Merrick Schaefer (UNICEF)
Transit 2.0 at BART.gov - Melissa Jordan (Bay Area Rapid Transit)
Utah Department of Public Safety Media Portal - Jeff Nigbur (State of Utah, Department of Public Safety)
Digital Diplomacy: Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds - Rita King (Dancing Ink Productions)

Of special interest to the FGI audience, Steve Schultze of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard discussed RECAP in his presentation, Crowdsourcing Federal Court Transparency. Also of interest, the presentation on EPA's MyEnvironment, MyEnvironment: Environmental Information for Your Community, generated lots of approving noises from the audience.

Tim O'Reilly was everywhere at the conference, quickly and respectfully responding to tweets and blog posts critiquing his "Government as a Platform" catch phrase/vision/conversation-starter.

His keynote:
Opening Keynote: Tim O'Reilly, O'Reilly Media (video, blip.tv)
And his "Government as a Platform" talk recorded prior to the conference:
The Platform for Change (video, blip.tv)

O'Reilly Media must view the Expo Showcase as a success; another has been announced for 2010.

The Expo preceded the main event, the Gov 2.0 Summit. I'll have more on that in a later post.

Related post: Gov 2.0 Expo and the Apps for America 2 Challenge Winners

From Mark Drapeau via O'Reilly Radar this excellent critique of government's use of Facebook. He thinks agencies may have signed up lots of Facebook fans but they aren't participating in the collaborative culture:

But it's not novel and it's not social and it's not engaging. The execution is flawed, the tactics are questionable, the strategy is vague, and the goals are unclear. And all the government pages in the top 10 list effectively look the same. Monkey-see, monkey-do.

Read the article here.

Peggy Garvin has an excellent overview of new tools and sources for following Congress.

• The Government Domain: Tracking Congress 2.0, by Peggy Garvin, LLRX (August 31, 2009).

The Department of Defense has a site devoted to a discussion of using Web 2.0 and social media in general.

• DoD Web 2.0 Guidance Forum

  "We want to examine the importance and relevance of Web 2.0 capabilities to Military families and get your view of its impact."

• Signs Of Support For DoD 2.0, By J. Nicholas Hoover, InformationWeek, (August 12, 2009)

  "An online forum created to promote discussion about the use of social media by the U.S. military is buzzing with commentary. The White House is pointing to the forum as an example of the type of openness and transparency the Obama administration seeks to encourage among federal agencies."

Red Flags Raised By Web 2.0 Contracts, National Journal, "Tech Daily Dose" (August 10, 2009).

The U.S. government's contracts with Internet companies for video, photo sharing and other Web 2.0 services may have ignored key privacy obligations of federal agencies, according the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

I thought I would give the readers of FGI the first scoop on some early research that is coming out of the University of Maryland on how members of Congress are using Twitter.

Twitter Use by the U.S. Congress (currently under review)

Abstract: Twitter is a microblogging service boasting over 7 million members and growing at a tremendous rate. With the buzz surrounding the service have come claims of its ability to transform the way people interact and share information, and calls for public figures to start using the site. In this study, we examine the way Twitter is being used by legislators, particularly by members of the United States Congress. We read and coded over 4,500 posts from all members of Congress using the site. Our analysis shows that Congresspeople are primarily using Twitter to post information, particularly links to news articles about them and their blog posts, and to report on their simple activities. These tend not to provide new insights into government or the legislative process or to improve transparency; rather, they are vehicles for self-promotion. However, Twitter is also facilitating direct communication between Congresspeople and citizens, though this is a less popular activity. In this paper, we report on our results, analysis, and provide suggestions for how Twitter can be used by Congresspeople in ways that benefit the citizens, not just the PR machines of the legislators themselves.

From the results of this study we found that Twitter is being used effectively in some spaces and not as effectively in others. In particular, Twitter has created opportunities for increased communication between citizens and Congresspeople, but the majority of posts contained information or location and activities which were being used for outreach and self promotion rather than to provide information that is helpful to citizens.

* Note this paper has been submitted for an upcoming conference but has NOT been accepted, peer-reviewed, or published. Please DO NOT CITE this article but if you are interested feel free to contact me.

The U.S. Department of State has a web page with an interactive map showing travel by the Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

• Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton > Travels With the Secretary > Interactive Travel Map

The site is an example of a hybrid site using Google maps, Yahoo APIs, and services from Thermopylae Sciences and Technology in addition to .gov hosting.

Dr. Elizabeth Losh, digital rhetoric scholar at U.C. Irvine, presents her research on how government agencies are using social media and how their use impacts government information and the public record.

Video of presentation (~68 minutes)

Presentation Slides

Grading WhiteHouse.gov, By Jose Antonio Vargas, Washington Post, March 24, 2009.

Remember when government information was boring and no one talked about it? Well, not anymore! Now everyone wants to weigh in on making government information accessible and interesting and useful. At the Washington Post, there is a new series, Grading WhiteHouse.gov, "a monthly feature that invites five thinkers across the online political and cultural spectrum to grade President Obama's WhiteHouse.gov." Cool!

Your Government Needs You: Re-design Congress Online, by Phil Glockner, ReadWriteWeb, March 20, 2009.

This is an open call for your thoughts and suggestions on the legislative databases that should be made accessible, as well as how that data could be used to drive innovative approaches on policy and 'shape the future of the nation'. There are a number of ways you can participate in this open call: you can submit ideas via this surveymonkey link, use the #honda2.0 and #opengov hashtags in your tweets, and, of course, leave a comment on the original article.

The Sunlight Foundation has a new website called OOGL: Open Our Government List, for you to vote and submit ideas for what the Open Government Directive should address.

Shortly after President Obama's inauguration, he issued a memo on transparency directing his top officials to develop plans for an Open Government Directive to promote transparency, participation, and collaboration. The Sunlight Foundation has created this page in order to add a public element to the crafting of this Open Government Directive that is itself transparent, participatory, and collaborative.

So far, the highest vote goes to Ethics Information, APIs & Bulk Data Access, and Procedural Information.

Spread the word and vote!