In the past it has been the practice for many governments around the world to avoid playing in the centre of commercial spaces, where competitively priced services are already provided by private businesses. Government interventions in these markets are managed through legislation and direct intervention as a last resort (in cases of market failure) –…
For the last ten years I’ve been making use of Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash) within websites to provide rich content features and applications unattainable with HTML. Unfortunately I still get asked the same questions about Flash, regarding accessibility, file size and how many users have the technology. I’d like to put these to bed….
Google has released into beta a set of major improvements to Google Analytics that will make it an even more robust web metrics tool. Including advanced data segmentation, data visualisation using ‘motion charts’, improved adsense integration, a more advanced administration console and an API for enterprise integration, this is the largest upgrade of Google Analytics…
While in Australia Malcolm Turnbull is the latest Australian parliamentarian to join Twitter (at http://twitter.com/TurnbullMalcolm), in the US the public sector is now applying the tool for everything from crime updates and traffic alerts to the daily schedules of US governors.The US public sector is beginning to discover that Twitter and other microblogging services are…
In August I analysed traffic to our agency’s website in July 2008 using Hitwise’s data measurement service, comparing our share of web traffic against the total to Federal government websites, other government websites and the top websites visited by Australians. The results provided me with a view of how important government websites are in peoples’ online lives –…
Forbes magazine has asked whether IT departments are their own worst enemies, in an article, The un-marketing of IT, citing examples such as, Promoting e-mail use but limiting inbox storage and file attachment sizes. Touting the Internet as a data goldmine, then blocking people from visiting so-called non-business sites. Providing people with a PC as…
I’ve been looking at the success of the Future Melbourne program, a wiki and blog based approach to shaping the future urban landscape of Australia’s second largest city. The program allowed citizens to directly collaborate, edit and comment on the plans for the future development of the city. It attracted more than 30,000 visits by…
Just as organisations can use social network sites to judge the relative merits of potential staff (per my post Locating and learning about future public employees), websites are allowing people to judge the relative merits of potential employers. How does your department rate?There’s no doubt that people research potential employers online, and in a ‘seller’s…
Fresh+New, a blog written by Seb Chan from the Powerhouse Museum, has brought to my attention Aza Raskin’s Ubiquity, a very interested look at the possible web of the future, using semantic browsers to provide a more connected experience. More details are in Seb’s post, More powerful browsers – Mozilla Labs Ubiquity, or on Aza’s…
On Friday the Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes, at the Australian Human Rights Commission released a media statement, Climate change secretariat excludes people with disabilities, indicating the Commmision was prepared to ‘out’ government publishers who did not meet Australia’s mandatory accessibility requirements for online material. “I recently said that, if things did not start to…
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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