Anthony Bradley

A member of the Gartner Blog Network

Anthony J. Bradley
GVP
3 years at Gartner
19 years in IT

Anthony J. Bradley is a group vice president in Gartner Research, managing teams that cover business process management, project and portfolio management, enterprise architecture, IT procurement, IT sourcing, and vendor management. Read Full Bio

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Nothing Much Going On at Recovery.gov

by Anthony J. Bradley  |  April 16, 2009  |  2 Comments

It doesn’t take more than even a quick look at recovery.gov to see that there really isn’t much activity on the site. They may have missed their opportunity to garner a productive community. They are missing the social aspect and it looks like a very basic run-of-the-mill information distribution Web 1.0 site.

Despite their Q&A on how you can participate

“Q: I want to help. What can I do?
A: Over the course of the spring, increasing amounts of information will become available on Recovery.gov that will show where the money is going. We are counting on you to peruse that information and tell us what you find. Please share your stories, your ideas, and your comments. They will then be sent to the Board for their review. “

There is no way to contribute other than filling out a form on your story. I couldn’t find any user stories to read so I’m assuming there are none. Also, there is no way to comment on anything (that I could find) and much of the information actually points to other sites which negates the collection of social feedback in one place.

If this was really intended to be a social site then it significantly misses the mark. The social functionality is missing and their is little seed content or participation. As a result, not surprisingly, there is no community. I hope this isn’t indicative of government jumping headlong into the social computing movement without doing it right.

According to compete.com, recovery.gov had 1.7+ million visits in February of this year and was already down 55% in March. They wasted a 1.7M+ significant chance to have an impact and build community. They may never get that chance again.

2 Comments »

Category: social solutions     Tags:

2 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Andrea Di Maio   April 17, 2009 at 5:23 am

    As I’ve often said, governments who create their own social networks are going to have a hard time. In all fairness, though, it will take some time before anything meaningful hits the site, with money being allocated and utilized.

  • 2 Anthony Bradley   April 17, 2009 at 9:15 am

    Agreed, they may have launched too early and probably should have waited until they had more compelling content and functionality.