Social Government

The future of the Internet is in the cloud, and it has implications for every sector of our society, especially government and business.
On Wednesday, Jan. 20, the Brookings Institution hosted a discussion on cloud computing including a keynote address from Brad Smith, senior vice president and general counsel of Microsoft Corp. Smith unveiled a policy [...]

Scribd, SlideShare and 19 other social media tools are featured on Apps.gov, the General Services Administration’s new government cloud computing Web site that launched today.
U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra announced the site, writing in a post on the White House Blog:
Apps.gov is an online storefront for federal agencies to quickly browse and purchase cloud-based [...]

In an attempt to get government agencies more involved on Facebook, the social network has launched a new page, Facebook and Government.
While the page is still new and largely devoid of content, it’s easy to see how this page could soon become a great resource for many agencies that use Facebook to communicate with citizens.
Could [...]

President Obama today announced former District of Columbia Chief Technology Officer Vivek Kundra will be the new federal chief information officer. Rumors had been swarming recently that Kundra, 34, would be appointed as the first federal CTO — a position that remains vacant.
Nevertheless, Kundra’s announcement is great news. He really likes the iPhone and Web [...]

The Washington Post reports what has been speculated recently: Vivek Kundra, the D.C. CTO, will be named as President Obama’s CTO CIO. The announcement is expected tomorrow.
D.C.’s Tech Chief to Become Federal Information Officer (by Kim Hart, The Washington Post)

It looks like Bev Godwin and company over at the General Services Administration actually are embarrassed by what Webcontent.gov says about social media.
The GSA posted a solicitation on FedBizOpps.gov Feb. 9 for a $2.5 million contract to conduct a “Citizen Engagement Survey.” One of the objectives of the survey is quite interesting:

…Do citizens really want [...]

Regulations.gov is a Web site that needs more Web 2.0 features — badly.
The Web site currently allows users to electronically submit comments for pending regulations at various agencies. It also allows the user to read the actual regulation and, in many (but not all) cases, read the comments of other citizens who have submitted their [...]

On a recent Internet-wide trek for information about the federal government’s use of social networking tools, I stumbled across this page on Webcontent.gov.
The page, written by USA.gov Director Bev Godwin, stated the following as one of a few “examples of government using social networks:”
“Many government agency networks and groups have sprung up on sites like [...]