Speaking with the locals can be one of the most rewarding – and most frustrating – experiences when traveling to foreign-language countries. If you make an attempt at their language – no matter how feeble – they will generally respect your efforts and go out of their way to be helpful. However if you simply…
In a sign that the discussion over what public data should be public is ongoing, the New York Times has reported that the NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority has issued a takedown notice to an iPhone developer who has used train schedules in his iPhone application. The Authority claims that public train schedule data is its…
Some of you may have read The Cluetrain Manifesto. This is widely considered to be one of the seminal works for Web 2.0, albeit being written in 1999, before the expression Web 2.0 was coined. The Cluetrain Manifesto outlined 95 theses for how markets would develop and people behave online, forshadowing the growth of social…
Launched by the NSW Premier at NSWSphere on Friday, Apps4NSW is the first Australian public competition for reusing online NSW government data to create useful applications for the public. Quoting the new site, In the competition, individuals and groups will compete for cash prizes by creating ideas and software application prototypes that can be used…
The NSW government has announced the launch of data.nsw.gov.au, a site that will shortly begin providing access to NSW government data feeds available for reuse online. It even has a Twitter stream at dataNSW that will provide notifications as data feeds are released. Announced at NSWSphere last Friday, alongside the release of the Apps4NSW public…
The Gov 2.0 Taskforce has launched a brainstorming site (via Ideascale) to source ideas that will help the Taskforce meet its goals. The first brainstorm is asking for ideas that consider the question, “How can the Government 2.0 Taskforce best meet its Terms of Reference?”, however is also capturing related ideas. There are cash prizes…
Fiat in Brazil is currently crowd sourcing the development of an concept car for 2010, the Fiat Mio. The concept is that the public (from anywhere in the world) can submit ideas for what they’d like to see in a car, these ideas can be voted and commented on by others and Fiat engineers will…
If you, like me, aren’t able to make it down to Parliament House in Sydney for Gov 2.0 NSW Public Sphere today, at least try to follow the Twitter stream (search on the hashtag #nswsphere), watch the video stream or listen to the audio stream for the day (details to be provided in the NSW…
In July the US Department of Defense launched a new blog, the Web 2.0 Guidance Forum, for the purpose of sourcing input from the public to be used as they develop a social media policy for the armed forces and their families. Reported in Nextgov, Defense asks the public for help forming social media policy,…
With all the hubbub about Gov 2.0 at present it’s often forgotten that a lot of what is being attempted is simply taking what is already done in other mediums and doing it online. For example, online engagement and consultation is an evolutionary rather than revolutionary step. Where governments used to host robust town hall…
This archive mirrors the original eGov AU blog — Craig’s professional commentary on AI, digital government and technology in public life, running since 2006.
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