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Gov 2.0 Week in Review

This past week in government 2.0 news was full, as always, particularly for this correspondent as the Gov 2.0 Expo comes to Washington next week. Bernard Kouchner may have written that the "universal spirit of the Enlightenment should run through the new media" but this week, the zeitgeist of the government information revolution online was powered by open data. As always, if you have comments or suggestions, please send them to Esta dirección electrónica esta protegida contra spambots. Es necesario activar Javascript para visualizarla or reply to @digiphile on Twitter.

Data.gov 2.0

The news that earned the most headlines was of the relaunch of Data.gov, which has seen substantial growth and improvements since the U.S. federal government published the first data set at the online repository a year ago. Federal CIO Vivek Kundra called data.gov: "pretty advanced for a 1-year-old" at the White House blog and talked at length on Federal News Radio about the anniversary of the website. The best coverage of the relaunch came from Wired's sneak peak at the redesigned Data.gov. Read NextGov for another good take on the update to the nation's data warehouse. And on the first anniversary of Data.gov, the Sunlight Foundation officially announced the launch of the National Data Catalog.

Government as a Platform

Over on the West Coast, Debra Bowen, Secretary of State of California, talked with Tim O'Reilly about Law.gov at the University of Berkeley. Video is embedded below:

Open Data

"The more open a government agency is, the more it seems that the public trusts it," mused Chris Dorobek in his post on public trust and government. If so, the creation of a "right to data" under the "Big Society proposals" from the new United Kingdom government could be significant. For those interested, there's a good overview of European mashups of public data at OurData.eu.

Up in Canada, David Eaves explored "open data as an example of the long tail of public policy at work."

Back in the United States, as Luke Fretwell pointed out at GovFresh, USAspending.gov relaunched this week as well. Fretwell approved, noting in his review that the new site "includes a cleaner, more elegant user interface and search filtering on all federal government spending." The new version of USASpending.gov was developed in Drupal and is partially hosted on NASA’s Nebula cloud computing platform.

And up in space? It turns out that open space data from NASA can improve lives - and save birds. The new evangelist for Data.gov, Jeanne Holm, explained what an international ontology of open space data is and why it's important.

What's next for open data online? A Senate bill would require agencies to post public records online. It's a companion to legislation (H.R. 4858) introduced in the House by Democratic Rep. Steve Israel of New York earlier this year. One example of open data online is at data.seattle.gov, where the city is now publishing 911 data in near real-time via the Socrata Open Data API.

If you're interested in exploring open data further, follow the brilliant statistician Hans Rosling, the man behind gapminder.org. Speaking at the World Bank today, he posited that "open data will foster innovation," an contention that may be borne out by the applications created around the data.worldbank.org. You can see Riesling's ably expressed in the Ted Talk embedded below, "Let my dataset change your mindset."

Internet freedom, government and democracy

Will the Internet bring more freedom and representative government? How should governments treat the online world and citizens? An important article from Rebecca MacKinnon, "In search of Internet Freedom," went deep into that question this past week. Back in April, Google's D.C. Talks featured "Democracy Online - Can the Internet Bring Change?," a forum in its Washington office that featured Pablo Chavez, Managing Policy Counsel, Google, Larry Diamond, Professor & Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Daniel Calingaert, Deputy Director of Programs, Freedom House, and Omid Memarian, an Iranian blogger. It's embedded below:

There was a notable demonstration of the Internet's ability to connect people outside of government filters when the @DalaiLama used Twitter to communicate with Chinese Web users, as reported by the Associated Foreign Press and the Associated Press.

The week ended with a lively discussion, "Does the Internet Favor Dictators or Dissenters?" The live webcast featured Eric Schmidt, Alec Ross, Tim Wu and James Fallows.

Facebook, privacy and government

Early this week, each user's interests, hobbies, work and education choices became Community pages on Facebook. That switch over also included associating locations, like cities, and government agencies, including federal entities, with these pages.

As Altimeter analyst Jeremiah Owyang made clear in his report, changes to Facebook Commmunity pages and privacy impact brands -- including government entities. The switch over is poised to cause some confusion for citizens looking for official accounts, and potentially some frustration for institutions that had entered into agreements with Facebook as a media partner. Compare Facebook's Department of Defense Community to the official agency page, Facebook.com/DeptofDefense.

Is this "govjacking," as Adriel Hampton suggested in his post on Facebook and government pages? As the screenshot on the right shows, these Community pages are currently ranked higher in search and are not curated by agencies, though both conditions may change.. The Terms of Service that the federal government agreed to with Facebook contain a clause that their agreement that would supersedes any changes to the general Terms of Service that conflict with it.

Given the use of official seals and the absence of a clear disclaimer on the pages, some citizens may be confused, despite the fact that Wikipedia content makes up much of the page. Facebook does note prominently that "You can also get us started by suggesting the Official Facebook Page," with an associated submission form. The official page did not, however, appear after I input the correct URL.

Given the use of official seals and the absence of a clear disclaimer on the pages, some citizens may be confused, despite the fact that Wikipedia content makes up much of the page. Facebook does note prominently that "You can also get us started by suggesting the Official Facebook Page," with an associated submission form. The official page did not, however, appear after I input the correct URL.

Resolving confusion about the official nature of a page may be a point of concern for government Web managers and citizens alike over the coming weeks as the rough edges of Community pages are smoothed out. Trust and identity are both bedrock issues for government use of social media, including Facebook pages. Government agencies appear to be considering options: the General Service Administration's @GovNewMedia account tweeted on Tuesday that "We're taking a look; see earlier tweet: http://is.gd/ceISC For reference, here's the amended Facebook ToS: http://bit.ly/aw5B6V."

UPDATE: When reached for comment, Facebook offered the following official statement: "We are working on a process right now, which will be available shortly, that will give Page owners the ability to request administrative control over a Community Page and have the content, as well as the people who’ve liked that Community Page migrated over to their Official Page." Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes also emphasized that Community Pages "are still in beta" and that we’re working on ways to improve them.

Gov 2.0 Expo Draws Near

This past week, I appeared on Gov20Radio with Gov 2.0 Expo Co-Chair Laurel Ruma, where we talked with host Adriel Hampton about the upcoming conference. You can listen to the episode, "Government as a Platform is Here to Stay" at BlogTalkRadio.com or stream it below.

During the show, we discussed the panels, speakers and workshops we're looking forward to next week, including many of those cited in Steve Lunceford's 10+ "hidden gems" not to miss at Gov 2.0 Expo. I'm looking forward to learning the winner to Sunlight Laboratories Design for America contest.