The General Services Administration (GSA) is riding the momentum of President Obama's new whitehouse.gov site to relaunch its own Web 2.0 effort.
In this article from ComputerWorld, the GSA points to its RSS feeds and gadgets (widgets) as new and improved ways to share information with the public.
Yes, RSS and widgets are nothing new in progressive commerical companies, but pushing those tools through the government system is a little like pushing a straw through a brick wall.
GSA has been working with new media for more than a year, most visibly on its GovGab blog. I had the pleasure of attending a presentation on blogging by GSA employee and GovGab blogger Colleen Ann Bayus at the Social Media for Government conference late last year, and I can say with all honesty that these folks get it.
To keep internal peace, the bloggers work under a policy that keeps things clean. (Colleen admitted that she had to delete a not-so-complimentary reference to Britney Spears in one of her posts.) The agency also screens comments, but tries to be tolerant of grumbling that doesn't come wrapped in bad language or defamatory speech.
GovGab is part of USA.gov, the official portal to the United States government.
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