Web 2.0 Examples

Examples of the use of Web 2.0 Technologies in Government
See also my essay on Web 2.0 Technologies in Government elsewhere on this site.
This essay updated 5 October 2008.   Original post 6 June 2008.

Mashups
•   CLEARMAP – Chicago Police Crime Reporting
Chief Geek comment: A fascinating site from CPD with a lot of detail, the ability to search by beat, ward, around an address or near a school, and even a link to the local Alderman’s website.
•   Crime Reports dot Com
Chief Geek comment: Not a government site, but a compendium of crime data from a number of law enforcement agencies, e.g. Montgomery County, Maryland.
•   Seattle – Everyblock and Chicago – Everyblock
Chief Geek comment: Fascinating windows into life around your block and in your neighborhood, for selected cities.   These are actually an index to a large amount of public data such as building permits, real estate listings and even public health department restaurant inspections, block-by-block (the Chief Geek will be avoiding that Chinese restaurant five blocks from his house).   The Chicago version also has crimes listed.
•   My Neighborhood Map – real-time Display of 911 Data on a Map (Seattle)
Chief Geek comment:   Technically not a mashup, but an application. The real-time 911 data comes from a Fire Department Computer-Aided Dispatch feed which is shown under the map.
•   An index to some mashups using government data
Chief Geek comment:   Federal contracts by state, tax contributions to the Iraq war and more. None of these, as far as I can tell, are “official” in the sense that they are created or sponsored by a government, but they illustrate the power of mashups.

Elected Official Blogs
Chief Geek comment:  Writing is hard – writing a regular column or blog and keeping the news fresh is hard.  Undoubtedly there are other elected officials who regularly blog, but the following two are examples of officials who clearly are committed to communicating with constituents through blogging.
•   City View - Tim Burgess, Seattle City Councilmember’s blog.
Chief Geek’s Comment: A well-done professional blog with photos and timely news. Some entries in this moderated blog garner a lot of comments, around all sides of an issue.
•   Neary-sighted. A blog by Lakewood (Washington State) City Councilmember Walter Neary. See also Councilmember Neary’s general page at www.walterneary.net.
Chief Geek comment:  Neary does regular updates, with lots of photos and links.  Most entries have zero or just a few comments. One of the best elected official blog examples I’ve seen.

Other Government Blogs
•   Mecklenburg County Blog
Chief Geek comment:   A once-every-ten-days posting blog with a few comments on some of the entries
•   Los Angeles Police Department Blog
Chief Geek comment:   A highly moderated blog. You’ll notice most of the entries have zero or just a few commments. Also the website URL is distinct from the City of Los Angeles website
•   Portland Water Bureau
Chief Geek comment: An attempt to use a semi-interactive blog by a government agency on a government website, including video and audio clips. Again, very few comments.
•   Library of Congress
Chief Geek comment: Matt Raymond’s entry of 24 April 2008, first anniversary of this blog, gives some insight into the challenges faces by many bloggers 
•   Index to Federal Government Blogs
Chief Geek comment:   Quite a variety here.
•   Index to Government Blogs
Chief Geek comment:   This list collected by the federal government. It appears most (if not all) of the elected official blogs are on campaign or personal websites, not government sites.
•   Technorati
Chief Geek comment:   This is the premier list of blogs and information about blogs. Very tellingly, there is no category of “government blogs”, although the “politics” category is well populated.
•   Police Blogs (General)
Chief Geek comment:   a number of “official” police blogs exist, such as Tulsa Okla. and Brookline Mass, but the only one I’ve found with any significant posted comments is LAPD (above).

Surveys of Constituent Opinions
•   Chief Geek Comment:   At this point I don’t see any statistically valid surveys of constituents in use by government.   Certainly there probably are governments using Zoomerang, Surveymonkey and similar publicly available survey technologies.  Please e-mail me with ideas or samples of government surveys.

Wiki’s
•   Chief Geek Comment:   I don’t have any publicly available government uses of Wiki’s. Several governments are using Wiki’s internally such as Randleigh Farms (City of Raleigh, NC) which won a PTI 2008 Solutions Award and Montgomery County, MD, using a wiki for internal project management. If you are aware of publicly usable government wiki’s, let me know.

Live Discussions with Elected Officials
•   Ask the Mayor on the Seattle Channel
Chief Geek Comment: A live cable television program broadcast at 7PM on the second Wednesday of each month, with telephone call-in questions and taped “person on the street” questions. Archives available.
•   Montgomery County, Maryland, Live Discussion with County Executive Ike Leggett
Chief Geek Comment: Text transcripts of previous virtual meetings are on the site. I’m not able to determine if this is audio-only or video as well

Podcasts
•   The Seattle Channel podcasts and audiocasts – you can even find this City government TV station’s ArtZone podcasts on Apple’s Itunes.
Chief Geek Comment:   The video podcasts are great, especially those related to the Arts in Seattle. If you’ve ever wanted to download audio of an exciting City Council meeting, here is the place to do it.

Suggest a site to add to this list.