“Amministrare 2.0” 21. June 2009 – 18:41 by Roberto Zarro

In 2008, the Municipality of Venezia, in Italy, launched a new project, named “Amministrare 2.0”, with the intention to transform relationships between citizen and the institutions. The idea is to use new technologies to allow a direct access, without intermediation, to information and services designed to solve everyday problems, thanks to the cooperation between citizenship and local government. One year later, we take a look to the services already working and available to reach these ambitious goals

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All new GOP.gov – Keeping up to the pace of openness 5. February 2009 – 13:53 by Bengt Feil (TuTech Innovation GmbH)

A while ago the possibilities of Change.gov were discussed on this weblog and right at noon on January 20^th the new White House website was launched. Both websites show a spirit of openness and the goal of the new US administration to get citizens more involved into the political process. There has been intense debate over whether these sites were open enough or if WhiteHouse.gov was just a small step to Web1.5. But among this entire discussion one thing seem to be implicit: The Democrats just better than the Republicans at working in the medium internet. Now the website of the Congress Republicans has been re-launched and its look and features seem to indicate that the conservatives try to catch up to the modern web presence already embraced by the Democrats.

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How will the social web evolve in 2009? 11. December 2008 – 15:47 by Bengt Feil (TuTech Innovation GmbH)

2008 definitely was a great year for everybody involved in social media and the web in general as for example new forms of communication developed (micro-messaging), online video content went mainstream (Hulu) and the largest and most successful online campaign helped to make Barrack Obama into the oval office. But what will 2009 bring to for the citizens of the net? Will it again be another “great” year or will the financial crush and other problems also effect web and it inhabitants? Fast Company posted a great article compiling the predictions for 2009 of eight persons who have different insights into the field. Four main trends can be identified from their statements:

1.) The personal profile on the web will become portable

Chris Brogan of New Marketing Labs thinks that social networks will start to merge and that data portability (e.g. the possibility for users to synchronize their data between platforms) will take off. Mary Hodder (Founder of Dabble.com) also thinks that user will be able to unify their online presence. But she also thinks Facebook will have trouble to compete with others in an open environment as they are they best example of a “walled garden”. From my point of view this prediction seems reasonable taking into account the ideas represented in Facebook Connect, Friend connect and Open Social.

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The pitfalls of Web2.0 for government Officials 25. November 2008 – 11:14 by Bengt Feil (TuTech Innovation GmbH)

As politically interested citizens and active members of the online community I assume we all would like to see our politicians to use as many of the great online communication tools as possible. There is no doubt that Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc. can be great to reach out to certain sets of constituencies and potential voters, collect donations or to raise transparency of government and party work. The Obama Presidential Campaign and the work done with Change.gov right now further support this assessment. But the Web2.0 has its pitfalls; especially for those holding a government office.

Politicians, as government officials, have to closely follow the legal and organisational rules governing the position they hold. This means that not every tool they choose to communicate with citizens may fit the purpose of their office or even be completely legal. An example for this would be the plan of Barrack Obama to keep posting his weekly radio address to the nation to Youtube.com and to embed that video on the Change.gov or other government website. This idea and the first try of it were warmly welcomed by the internet community and I fully agree to that excitement. But there are several problems which have to be taken into account:

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