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"We're determined that government websites should be efficient and meet people's needs - easy to find, easy to use, and fully accessible. And in our relentless drive to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the way we use websites to meet this goal, we have already closed 900 now unnecessary government websites, with plans to close nearly 500 more. And we will set new challenging standards of quality and accountability for government websites - including a requirement that each one allows feedback and engagement with citizens themselves. From today no new website will be allowed unless it fully meets these requirements."

Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 1:00 pm Transparency and Open Government Vivek Kundra, our Chief Information Officer, and Beth Noveck, Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government, explain the Open Government Initiative On January 21, 2009, his first full day in office, the President issued a Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government and called for recommendations for making the Federal government more transparent, participatory, and collaborative. As Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President says in the video below, we are proud "to announce an important next step in this historic call to action - one that will help us achieve a new foundation for our government - a foundation built on the values of transparency, accountability and responsibility." The Administration is committed to developing those recommendations in an open fashion. Consistent with the President's mandate, we want to be fully transparent in our work, participatory in soliciting your ideas and expertise, and collaborative in how we experiment together to use new tools and techniques for developing open government policy. Today we are kicking off an unprecedented process for public engagement in policymaking on the White House website. In a sea change from conventional practice, we are not asking for comments on an already-finished set of draft recommendations, but are seeking fresh ideas from you early in the process of creating recommendations. We will carefully consider your comments, suggestions, and proposals. Here's how the public engagement process will work. It will take place in 3 phases: Brainstorming, Discussion, and Drafting. Beginning today, we will have a brainstorming session for suggesting ideas for the open government recommendations. You can vote on suggested ideas or add your own. Then on June 3rd, the most compelling ideas from the brainstorming will be fleshed out on a weblog in a discussion phase. On June 15th, we will invite you to use a wiki t

More than a quarter of American adults - 26% - used their cell phones to learn about or participate in the 2010 mid-term election campaign. In a post-election nationwide survey of adults, the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project found that 82% of adults have cell phones. Of those cell owners, 71% use their phone for texting and 39% use the phone for accessing the internet. With that as context, the Pew Internet survey found that:

"Google Moderator on YouTube Enables Real-Time Feedback from Your Audience Share Starting today, YouTube has integrated the ability to use Google Moderator into your YouTube channel. Moderator is a social platform that allows you to solicit ideas or questions on any topic, and have the community vote the best ones up to the top in real-time. YouTube previously used Google Moderator as part of its interviews with American President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper."

Smith's community isn't the only smaller city or town to find itself suffering form a lack of local press. While the New York City mayoral election attracts interest from the New York Times, elsewhere the media landscape has changed drastically, thanks to the shuttering of smaller newspapers that were traditionally the source of local political coverage. In some places, social media is being used to try and replace some of what has been lost in terms of professional reporting.

Many local governments are figuring out how to use the Internet to make government data more accessible. The goal is to spawn useful Web sites and mobile applications - and perhaps even have people think differently about their city and its government

Meanwhile, I expect we'll see more hoopla about Barack Obama not using Twitter, even though his campaign never asserted that he did himself. So far about half of the follow-up tweets on the #obamacn hashtag are RT's about the admission and the other half is people responding that they never thought he was tweeting. Are 50% of Twitter users really that surprised?

The Republican Party may not have made the best use of Facebook in last fall's elections, but If you're looking to keep tabs on the latest Sarah Palin news these days, your best bet is to become a fan of her on Facebook.

Although measuring engagement isn't necessarily always a numbers game, when online debate, collaboration, and conversation is a stated goal of a project, it would seem that a higher percentage of the target audience (Internet-using Americans) should have been involved, if only through comments and ratings.

GSA Clears Path for Government Web 2.0 Use

"We will use social media and the latest technology available to fuel the energy and commitment of folks on the ground, community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, house to house, all around the country," said Katie Hogan, a spokeswoman for Mr. Obama's re-election campaign

US campaign: "one in five people contacted by a Facebook friend acted on a get out the vote request because they were contacted by someone they knew."