Comments on: Do You Still Think That Government Portals Are Relevant?

By: Two More Nails in the Government Portal’s Coffin

Two More Nails in the Government Portal’s Coffin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 01:34:12 +0000

[...] government portals the way we know them is doomed. I posted about this a few times (see here, here and here), and I wrote about this well before government 2.0 or even web 2.0 was in sight, in a [...]

By: Government Portals Keep Struggling

Government Portals Keep Struggling — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:47:52 +0000

[...] I had two client calls today that brought me back to my controversial line about the questionable future of government portals. [...]

By: Andrea Di Maio

Andrea Di Maio — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:28:45 +0000

@Sarah & Jeffrey. You make a great point about volunteer efforts to be transient in nature and the need for government to be there, as the provider of last resort. Actually, I have never said that governments have to abdicate on their responsibility to provide (as much as possible) accurate data and services, but that the ways to access and consume that data and those services may (and will) not be limited to government controlled channels. This calls for a serious re-assessment of how much money is spent in building government-wide portals vs. how much effort is put in monitoring the emergence and relevance of online communities that may provide a better or just a complementary channel for constituents to get data and services (see my previous post at http://bit.ly/4mfS40).

By: Craig Thomler

Craig Thomler — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:59:32 +0000

Why not outsource government portals to commercial entities and allow them to profit from targeted advertising via audience profile building?

There would be an ongoing commitment to the portal and a commitment to accurate information provision potentially greater than a government might have.

I believe we’d see faster and cheaper development and better use of modern technologies – plus it would push back on government departments who can be slow to update out-of-date material.

We live in a radical time – it is time to consider radical solutions. Why assume that it takes a government to provide an ongoing valid information source? Commercial entities and not-for-profits like Wikipedia have also demonstrated the ability to deliver this – often to a higher level of functional excellence and accuracy than government has managed to achieve.

Cheers,

Craig

By: Jeffrey Levy

Jeffrey Levy — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:19:25 +0000

Sarah nailed it.

I also believe that in many cases, the gov’t is a more trusted source than random people. Not in all cases, but often.

Not that our sites are perfect. We need to do better.

But gov’t sites irrelevant? Not a chance.

By: Sarah Bourne

Sarah Bourne — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:54:51 +0000

The footer of the Do-It-Yourself site says, “may contain incorrect or out of date information.” Indeed, the most recent activity I could find on that site was from over a month ago.

And this is the problem with the idea that government sites can be replaced by volunteer efforts: the volunteers move on. They have other things in their lives competing for their time and attention, such as paying jobs and a home and family life. It’s hard to sustain interest in trash collection schedules and the like when the existing site does at least an adequate job of handling this information.

While parts of some government sites get neglected from time to time, they eventually get taken care of because it’s somebody’s job to make sure that it does or because something has substantively changed.

Government portals are mostly about providing services. The open data movement, on the other hand, is about making better use of the data government collects in conducting it’s business. There is tremendous potential value, but government can’t afford to pursue all potentialities. This is where volunteers’ excitement, energy, imagination and fresh perspectives are most needed. Their efforts can produce better ways of viewing and using data, but that isn’t the same as replacing official portals.

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:52:20 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by AndreaDiMaio: Do You Still Think That Government Portals Are Relevant? – http://bit.ly/4bBf2M #gov20…

By: Per Olsson

Per Olsson — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:10:11 +0000

If government portals would adapt information and architecture after the actual visitors and not the writers AND if they changed much faster so visitors could actually make good use of the services they would have a meaning and be relevant.
But today it feels like many of these portals are out there because everyone expect it to be there without really knowing why.

By: Tweets that mention Do You Still Think That Government Portals Are Relevant? -- Topsy.com

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:40:57 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by ErikJonker, Andrea DiMaio. Andrea DiMaio said: Do You Still Think That Government Portals Are Relevant? – http://bit.ly/4bBf2M #gov20 [...]