Most presidential events and White House briefings are now streamed at whitehouse.gov/live — allowing the public to watch Administration events live and in their entirety. The addition of the streaming video application could drastically expand the potential reach of the Administration’s message and connectivity to the average citizen, making it a powerful political tool.

The State of the Union Address tonight will also be watchable on the White House Facebook application, where users will be able to post comments in real time and engage with others on Facebook.

On its surface, advocates of open and transparent government should applaud these moves — which show how a tech-savvy administration is using innovative technology to open the doors of the White House. However, users should understand where the content is coming from. Both the White House Web site and its applications are streaming content that is being produced by the White House, which ultimately is in control over which events are broadcast and by what methods they are accessible. There is no oversight or C-SPAN-like public access filter. That said, one would suspect that any attempts to manipulate media messages would not go unnoticed, given the increasing size and engagement of the audience.

Also this week, the White House and YouTube announced a partnership, Citizen Tube, where the public is invited to submit questions for the President via video and, next week, the President will respond, via YouTube, to answer them. Users will be able to vote on favorite questions using Google Moderator, according to the site. YouTube will also be live-streaming the State of the Union Address tonight.

Finally, WhiteHouse.gov released a series of short video statements from ever member of the Obama cabinet giving an update on the work of their department- the longest video is 90 seconds. The “Cabinet Reporting to You” videos are a first of its kind.

With these new ways of watching and interacting with the White House and the President, the administration is setting a high standard for engagement in its first State of the Union Address.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

“The road tour, billed as the largest civic outreach campaign in the bureau’s history, features 13 vans that will bring census information and interactive displays across 150,000 miles for 1,547 days with 800 publicity stops at parades, festivals and such major sporting events as the Super Bowl and NCAA Final Four basketball tournament.”

This is a great opportunity for the Census Bureau to leverage new Web 2.0 technologies in its outreach (particularly to help avoid under counts, as one organization pro-actively points out). The Times explains that Bureau is “bringing Twitter, Facebook and other 21st-century technology to the centuries-old exercise.” Each vehicle of the tour, according to a press release, will have its own Twitter handle and users can “track the tour online as it happens and through daily social media postings.” That sounds great.

However, it seems that the agency is off to a poor start. Despite gearing up to interact with more than 300 million Americans, here’s what the social networks of the agency (some of which came long before the 2010 push) look like at this point:

• Agency Twitter followers: 898
• 2010 Tour Twitter Followers (@2010portrait, which is avatar-less): 59
• Facebook Fans: 303
• YouTube subscribers: 128
• Flickr says, “U.S. Census Bureau doesn’t have anything available to you.”

Perhaps you can’t judge an agency by is followers. But it’s 2010, and by any standard, the Census Bureau is behind. Less than two years ago it scrapped plans for hand-held computers that could have saved taxpayers some $3 billion, and, as a little icon on it’s Web site reminds visitors, “NOTE: THE [CENSUS] FORM CAN NOT BE FILLED OUT ONLINE.”

This is from an agency that, as NextGov’s Alan Balutis wrote, carries out “one of our nation’s most important statistical, financial and political exercises.” He asks during the fallout from the hand-held computer controversy, “Where was the Census CIO?” That question persists to this day, especially since the agency’s own mission statement touts its “readiness to innovate.” Where is the innovation?

Granted, Census staff know it’s coming, recently confronting the issue on its blog:

“We are looking both at new tools of data collection that make it easy for people to respond and tools that can guarantee that information people provide can be kept confidential. We have to worry about both. It’s easy to predict that there will be many generations of technologies suitable for data collection invented over the coming years. The Census Bureau needs to stay on top of these developments to fulfill its mission to the taxpayers efficiently.”

To its credit, it also has followed through, to an extent, on a promise to relaunch 2010census.gov that includes “include additional information resources and an online newsroom that contains interactive and social media elements.” The site is flashy and easily navigable. It has a compelling interactive feature where visitors can view video content that explores “real life stories that make up America.” Unfortunately, the load time is slow and one can’t easily share these stories across social networks. While there seems to be an effort, the agency still has far to go.

Our first census was carried out by U.S. Marshals riding on horseback in 1790. And while 2010 might seem like the modern equivalent, some more encouragement from citizens and oversight by Congress might just do the trick in 2020.

What do you think? What are some ways the Census Bureau can embrace Government 2.0 to more effectively do its job?

This comprehensive wiki contains links to government social media best practices sites as well as blogging and commenting policy sites.

We’ve covered many of the sites mentioned there already, but there were some gems — especially the links to state-level policies and guidelines.

If you see something interesting on the wiki, let me know!

[h/t to Jeffrey Levey and Craig Newmark]

This new feature will let users type in “unemployment rate” or “population” along with a specific location into a Google search and, thanks to technology the company acquired from Trenadlyzer two years ago, be able to import the data into an interactive chart. From there, users can add or subtract data from additional locations to compare. Below is a search I did that compared the unemployment rate in Pike County, Pa. (my hometown) to the overall state of Pennsylvania:

Isn’t that much better than staring at rows and columns of numbers, after first having to find them?

What is now commonly referred to as “information aesthetics” will exponentially increase the usefulness of massive amounts of government data. As Google’s Ola Rosling writes, “They did the hard work! We just made the data a bit easier to find and use.”

The White House’s E-Government and Information Technology developed something similar last year, known as VUE-IT - Visualization to Understand Expenditures in Information Technology. This platform “provides users with a drill down browsing capability to browse the list of Federal IT investments.” You can read more about it in this user guide. Though the data is more specific, the principle is the same.

Google’s launch of “Public Data” today only magnifies the possibilities and need for data.gov – a one-stop shop for citizens looking to make sense of their country and community, one graph at a time.

As the agency plays a key role in the latest public health issue, the Swine Flue outbreak, one can find updated information from the Atlanta-based agency on Twitter, at @CDCemergency. For hashtags, #swine and #swineflu have yielded lots of information.

They’ve also been using PandemicFlu.gov, a favorite Web site of ours, to disseminate information.

The CDC even put out a Swine Flu video podcast.

This agency really knows how to get its message out! Be sure to heed their warnings and advice, and please stay safe!

UPDATE: Alex has suggested that I provide links to some cool sites using technology that the CDC should consider adopting.

• Google Map of the flu outbreak
• Google Flu Trends, which tries to pinpoint outbreaks based on what people are searching

Editor’s note: As the academic year draws to a close for us, expect less frequent postings for the next two weeks. We hope to be back at full force once finals are over. Thank you for your understanding!

I tend to agree with ReadWriteWeb’s post about the application. This application is not really appropriate, especially given its functionality. While I love my iPod Touch and MacBook, Apple is not known for making open platforms. A mobile Web page with similar functionality would certainly still work on the Apple platform, in addition to the many other Internet-capable mobile devices. The goal of these types of initiatives should be to make information available to the widest possible audience in a convenient package. So, while it may be tempting to jump on the iPhone bandwagon, it is not the only platform governments should develop for.

That said, I am encouraged by a Newsweek article this week which talks about the military applications of the Apple device. Given the tremendous number of applications available, its simple interface and hardware configuration, the military is finding it incredibly useful. Among other things, the military is using the device as the hardware interface to an inherently social web of tactical information: reconnaissance footage from overhead unmanned aerial vehicles can be transmitted directly to the device, soldiers can post information about certain areas (tagged by street) and then pull that information up by snapping a picture of a street sign and explosive ordinance disposal teams can use the motion sensor to control their robots.

They’ve given the lifestream aggregation concept popularized by sites like FriendFeed a helmet and an M16. Who would have thought a few years ago that the social network would move from the realm of teen gossip to helping America fight smarter in Iraq and Afghanistan?

• EPA Earth Day 2009 Photo Project: People and the Environment
• EPA Earth Day 2009 Photo Project: The beauty of nature
• EPA Earth Day 2009 Photo Project: Wildlife

The photo project is a great example of a government agency using social media to promote its work, though participation is surprisingly low. See finalists from 2008 here.

That’s right, the State Department is taking the White House’s lead and bringing interactivity to new heights with this interactive Web site.

Similar to what the White House did, the concept here revolves around submitting questions for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who will answer them live on Friday.

However, this town hall, hosted by Howcast, makes better use of Web 2.0. By creating an account or logging in via Facebook Connect participants can interact in discussion forums, edit wikis and build community along the way.

Even though this application was not developed by State and is not hosted by them, this has got to be one of the first government 2.0 applications I’ve seen that uses Facebook Connect.

I hope to have a write-up of the town hall over the weekend! Submit your questions now!

[via Mashable]

In September 2008, Allen’s office created Commandant’s Corner 2.0 – a dynamic Web site that incorporates many Web 2.0 tools: a blog, a Flickr stream, a YouTube channel and a Facebook fan page.

Prior to September, Russell said that the Commandant’s static Web site received about 1,000 visits and pa

United States Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen. (Image Courtesy of USCG)

ge views per week. Since the Web 2.0 tools were added, that number has skyrocketed to about 6,700 visits and 15,000 page views per week.

“Across the board, we’ve been very pleased with the outcome we’ve received,” Russell said.

Blog

The centerpiece of Commandant’s Corner 2.0 is Allen’s blog, iCommandant. Allen and others write the blog, though Allen himself reviews all posts before they’re posted, according to Russell.

“What he doesn’t actually write, he sees, approves and is actually aware of everything,” he said. “If a blog post ends in ‘ADM A,’ it’s definitely his.”

Russell admitted that not everyone will agree with what Allen says on his blog, but they are open to comments about it.

“We will pretty much post everything we receive, as long as you’re respectful,” he said.

Russell then stressed the transparency aspect of blogging.

“The neat thing about social media is what you can do,” he said. “In our case, we feel the transparency is important. When you’re doing the blog that’s under the name of your service chief, it’s important.”

YouTube

“We’ve been on YouTube for over a year,” Russell said. “When we released the video of the ‘miracle on the Hudson,’ we got 750,000 hits.”

Russell was referring to dramatic video from a Coast Guard camera of the landing of US Airways flight 1549 when it ditched in New York’s Hudson River in January.

The USCG has been on YouTube long before the GSA’s recent terms of use agreement with the popular video site. Russell said that the Coast Guard’s legal staff worked with YouTube on an agency-specific agreement.

Flickr

“One of the biggest surprises is the popularity of the Flickr page,” Russell said. “I only have to manage one photo page. It feeds to Commandant’s Corner 2.0 and to Facebook.”

Some of the most popular photos on their Flickr stream are not the professional photographs but “just the Admiral with a camera phone, or his staff with a camera phone,” he said.

Facebook

Russell said the Allen’s original Facebook presence was a standard profile page for, not a fan page.

“We transitioned to a fan page,” he said. “We can’t control who ops-on as a fan. But it still gives us as a presence.”

Russell added that Allen still has a personal Facebook profile that he uses to communicate with his friends and family.

As of posting time Thursday, Allen had over 2,300 fans on Facebook.

The Future

Russell was excited about the upcoming launch of a main blog for the entire Coast Guard. He said that Allen will still blog on iCommandant, but the focus of it might change.

“The beauty of social media is there are more tools than you can possibly use,” Russell said. “You can’t use them all, but we can choose the ones that best support our mission.”

The reality, of course, is that is the only, or rather, the most popular, tool for the job. The “follow wars,” as I’ll call them, were originally seen as progress for the service as a whole. Government posters should be proud if their tweets attract a few thousand followers — it means that they’re doing something right.

On the other hand, we’ve already discussed the outcomes of only following other institutions.

It may be an imperfect union — government and Twitter — but a wrench can be used as a hammer in a pinch. As government learns more about the concept of Twitter (not to mention the rest social media), and its advantages and limitations, there is a possibility that it will be moved to create a social media service of its own.