But as with Web 2.0, the real secret of success in Government 2.0 is thinking about government as a platform. If there’s one thing we learn from the technology industry, it’s that every big winner has been a platform company: someone whose success has enabled others, who’ve built on their work and multiplied its impact. Microsoft put “a PC on every desk and in every home,” the internet connected those PCs, Google enabled a generation of ad-supported startups, Apple turned the phone market upside down by letting developers loose to invent applications no phone company would ever have thought of. In each case, the platform provider raised the bar, and created opportunities for others to exploit.
yc c on 09 Mar 09There's eight ajax applications scheduled to be in the initial release. A contacts manager, calendar, email broadcast tool, to-do lists, a financial ledger, a feed reader, favorites and tagging. All of the applications will be fully accessible by mobile device; there will be three versions of the site, a text only version for simple phones, a version with more graphics for PDAs and the basic browser version.
