puffbox

Tom Loosemore to Channel4

I’m probably the last to pick up on this news, but for the sake of completeness, I should note the announcement last week of Tom Loosemore’s imminent move from Ofcom to Channel 4’s 4IP. With the demise of the notion of a Public Service Publisher online, quoted by Tom as ‘one of [his] areas of focus’ [...] read on »

WordPress runs America too

A fascinating photo from WordPress chief Matt Mullenweg’s keynote address at last weekend’s WordCamp in San Francisco revealed a list of (US) ‘government agencies using WordPress’: So that’s all the armed services, NSA, CIA and FBI… which kind of puts the ‘(in)security’ argument in some context. Hey, the Marine Corps love it so much, they’re listed [...] read on »

COI’s instant response to RSS request - blimey!

I’m pinching myself. Wednesday, 08:30am: Justin Kerr-Stevens makes a request via OPSI’s Public Sector Information Unlocking Service. A couple of dozen people sign up to say ‘good idea’. A few people (me included) add some more substantial comments. Fast forward two days to Friday, 12:32pm: COI publishes details of RSS feeds for (virtually) every Cabinet-level [...] read on »

Met launches London crime maps

London’s Metropolitan Police has launched the first test of its planned ‘crime mapping’ application, and at first glance, it’s really quite nice. There’s data from borough to ’sub-ward’ (a few streets), although at the moment it’s only carrying aggregated totals of ‘burglary, robbery and vehicle crime’. The ‘high/average/low’ colour coding makes it easy to take in; [...] read on »

Ofcom’s commentable documents

Ofcom’s Tom Loosemore shows there’s still plenty that can be done with Typepad; an ‘interactive’ version of their Communications Market Review has just gone up on the same account used to host their Public Service Broadcasting review blog. It’s actually the second time they’ve done this; there was a similar trial earlier this year, with [...] read on »

Final Digital Dialogues report

The third - and final - report from the Hansard Society’s Digital Dialogues new media experiments emerged on Tuesday, although I very nearly missed it in all the excitement around Downing Street. The press release offers ‘a few simple rules’ for those wanting to use the internet for engagement and consultation, based on the experience [...] read on »

New Number10 site goes live

Today sees the long-awaited launch of the new Number10 website, based on WordPress and built by New Media Maze with occasional interventions by yours truly. The reaction so far has been positive, although as the team have admitted to Twitter contacts, there are numerous rough edges still to be smoothed out. (Some more serious than [...] read on »

New No10 site in the Mail

Thursday’s Daily Mail picks up on the imminent launch of the new Downing Street website, and chooses to focus on the ‘Number10TV’ video element, to be powered by Brightcove. But for once, it’s a story driven more by its scepticism about new technology than its dislike of the current government. They wrongly call it ‘the latest [...] read on »

Le Twitter is front-page news

French left-of-centre newspaper Libération dedicated Monday’s entire front page to ‘le Twitter’, declaring it to be ‘politicians’ latest weapon’. With only 6,000 users in France, compared to two million on Facebook, it’s still a relatively new phenomenon - and the lead story gives a decent grounding for those who haven’t come across it. Obama gets [...] read on »

Departmental blog platforms

When you think of ‘official’ blogging platforms inside government, the obvious example is the Foreign Office blogs site - headed of course by David Miliband, but featuring some truly remarkable contributions from various global ‘hotspots’ (Beijing, Kosovo, Zimbabwe). But it’s not the only one out there, and it’ll soon be joined by others. One which rarely [...] read on »