This is the second of two posts written by Dr. Mark Drapeau about government 2.0. Click here to read his first post, “Government 2.0: An Insider’s Perspective.”
In June 2008, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress’ investigative arm, released a report stating that, “more than 4 years after September 11, the nation still lacked the government-wide policies and processes called for in law to provide a framework for guiding and integrating a myriad of ongoing efforts to share terrorism-related information critical to protecting our homeland.”
Simply put, people in the government aren’t talking to each other enough. As one person, I cannot pretend to solve this problem, nor even understand all of the issues involved. And understandably, the details of some of the workings of government are shielded from public consumption. But for our purposes here, I ask a slightly different question: Given that governments are inherently reactive, rather than proactive (I need give no examples), how can this be compatible with the rapidly evolving world of social software?
In what I think is a good trend, people associated with the government are using Web 2.0 (whether they know it or not). Increasingly, senior officials in the national security community have LinkedIn accounts and curiously dip their toes in the Facebook and Twitter waters, if only because they hear about these sites from their daughters or research assistants. The only way to truly understand the power of Web 2.0 is to participate in it, and even the smallest foray should be applauded.
Ironically, however, many government agencies block such sites for use at work. For example, I cannot access MySpace or YouTube from the computer in my office at the Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) blocks most social networking sites besides LinkedIn. At least one part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) blocks Google Chat. Not only do these policies make little sense (there are legitimate research uses for all of these sites, while email, iTunes, and non-blocked websites are ‘abused’ daily), the policies are inconsistent.
Despite this, there are overt sprinklings of Web 2.0 influence all over the federal government. For example, in mid-2007, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sponsored a public blog about pandemic influenza, which I contributed to due to my work on global health security. This was a great early example of a government agency engaging with an interested, and in many cases, expert audience.
Contemporary government blogs include very solid efforts by two agencies that people love to hate: the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and the U.S. Postal Service – the latter of which is a very creative effort. NASA has multiple Twitter-streams in the realm of micro-blogging, and they utilize YouTube and other new media to publicize their exciting work. More budding efforts abound.
There are also promising extra-governmental efforts. Perhaps most notable among them, GovLoop was built using Ning and in only seven weeks has attracted over 500 users from federal, state, and local governments. There was also an event entitled Social Media in Government, with the goal of the conference to “capture the power of social media in your organization, along with helpful tools, tips and techniques to get started.” Activities like these are already making it easier for public servants to share ideas and knowledge.
At a recent Washington, DC-area conference entitled ”Defense 2.0,” Opening Keynote speaker Michael Nelson pointed out that the Internet has ceased to be a tool, and has evolved into a place. And Marketing 101 teaches that you want to be in the places where your target audience is. For the government, whether interested in recruiting employees, talking to subject-matter experts, or collecting counter-terrorism intelligence, using “rich media” to participate in discussions on the Internet and get people to engage with their “brand” will be increasingly important.
But Defense 2.0 is still in its infancy, with a large gap between vision and reality. Thus far, Web 2.0 efforts, while some of them are very promising (for example, Intellipedia), have mainly occurred in isolation, with lack of coordination and no overall Government 2.0 theory, strategy, or framework for using these new social tools to best serve the American people. Here, I begin to describe the beginnings of such a framework.
Mainstream media coverage of the national security community largely involves “guns and ammo,” but increasingly U.S. armed forces leverage the power of other elements of government including diplomatic, intelligence, and economic components to conduct complex, “low-intensity” operations that involve far more than combat. These efforts also regularly involve groups outside the federal government, whether they are state and local responders, military forces of other nations, or global non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
“It’s the notion of unity of effort without unity of control,” says Dr. Linton Wells II, who has a background in the Navy, previously acted as the CIO of the entire U.S. military apparatus, and is now heavily involved with efforts to provide “transportable infrastructures” including inexpensive communications technologies to disaster-relief zones (see STAR-TIDES, below).
Because modern governments now think about military missions for national security in a much broader context, opportunities to use social software can best be divided into three very broad – and diverse – arenas. They are: (1) government internal information sharing, (2) creating and nurturing relationships with non-governmental entities, and (3) empowering people, particularly those in post-disaster, post-war, or impoverished situations. Understanding the pros and cons of incorporating Web 2.0 tools into each of these circumstances is the goal of a research project I have started at the National Defense University called Social Software for Security, or S3.
Internal governmental information sharing means different things to different people. The most commonly-stated objection to the incorporation of social software into national security operations is that malware could be implanted or the social tools could otherwise provide access into government systems, thereby reducing network integrity. However, a good deal of government information, while perhaps private, is not necessarily so much so that off-the-shelf Web 2.0 sites cannot be utilized – they do typically come with some security features.
Examples of such “less secure” information exchanges include Office Directors polling staffs about coordinating schedules or planning social events, Naval Postgraduate School students using iPods with audio/video to supplement lectures, Public Affairs monitoring media feeds about topics of interest, or Human Resources bringing soldiers’ families together using social networks that provide information about local areas. Paraphrasing what Maverick might say about this information, “If I told you, I would not have to kill you.”
In the realm of developing and nurturing a social network of government employees and non-governmental entities, social software also has numerous applications. Sites like kluster can enhance communication and not only help to promote organization within an amorphous and changing coalition, but also help groups discuss problems and arrive at actionable conclusions. Some very important entities, like the Defense Science Board and the Highlands Forum, involve groups of subject matter experts from inside and outside government interacting in various ad hoc ways to solve challenging problems in national security.
A global social network along these same lines is called STAR-TIDES, or Sustainable Technologies, Accelerated Research – Transportable Infrastructures for Development and Emergency Support. STAR-TIDES is a network of governmental, non-profit, academic, and other individuals dedicated to providing low-cost, transportable infrastructure for post-disaster, impoverished, or post-war individuals; including cheap mobile communications technologies.
In the social software space, STAR-TIDES has a Twitter stream detailing conferences attended, sponsored events, daily meetings, and the like. The network may also begin using sites like kluster or DeepDebate to go through an organized, collaborative decision-making process to arrive at actionable conclusions.
Finally, STAR-TIDES is utilizing mashups in their humanitarian efforts. One, constructed by InSTEDD (Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases, and Disasters), is called Contacts Nearby. This program interfaces your Facebook biography with Google Maps (geographical information) and Twitter (archivable communications), allowing (say) a refugee to read about, geo-locate, and chat with a U.S. Marine unit, members of an Africa-based NGO, and other refugees with recycled, donated mobile phones. There is now similar software for the new iPhone which concentrates mainly on tagging and auto-tagging geo-located photographic information using mashups with other programs like your Google Calendar. All of these data can then be shared on blogs, wikis, and other social sites.
Related to this, online social communication – particularly scalable micro-blogs like Twitter – can also behave as an “early warning system” to rapidly detect natural disasters, and even localize their origins. As someone who researches the connection between infectious disease and international security, I have been thinking about its uses in the event of a pandemic outbreak. Could Twitter power users like Robert Scoble help to disseminate information on government posters like the one I recently created?
In the end, diverse missions will require differing social software. Many novice end users will probably know their mission requirements, but will not know which Web 2.0 tools are the best fit. As a first step towards helping such users, my Social Software for Security project has funded an effort by Desarae Veit to catalog more than 1,000 social networking sites and describe their properties that may be of use in government and humanitarian efforts – like whether they are mobile-enabled, if they are high or low bandwidth, if they are free to use, and so forth.
This information has now been incorporated into a public website that we have named Sniki, for Social Networking Wiki. To my knowledge, such a public, interactive database has not heretofore existed. I’m happy that the National Defense University could help to provide this resource to the Web 2.0 community, and in the spirit of social software I encourage you all to register on the site, edit it, and consider it yours!
Dr. Mark Drapeau is the 2006-2008 AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security policy of the National Defense University in Washington. These views are his own and not the official policy or position of any part of the U.S. Government. He can be reached at mark.d.drapeau@ugov.gov via email.
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Google on Wednesday announced that it has launched a music search service in China that allows users to access music legally online through its new service called Music Onebox. According to the company, the service is backed by some record labels and will be supported by advertising revenue.
As the AP points out, paid music downloads in China are “practically nonexistent.” According to most estimates, more than 99 percent of all downloaded files in China are pirated and legitimate sales represent less than 1 percent of the world’s total music revenue, reaching just $76 million.
Each time someone uses Google’s Music Onebox to find a song, they’re redirected to Top100.cn, which will offer them the opportunity to download the track for free. The record labels will then incur the revenue coming from the advertising on the site.
There’s no way to tell if this new model will help curb piracy in China and record labels are more than a little hesitant to allow people to download songs and rely on advertising to turn a profit, but it’s the first step in the right direction that could see them come around and start trusting the Web a bit more.
That said, this will never come to the United States. Let’s face it – iTunes is the world’s largest music retailer and people seem to be more than happy buying music that’s littered with DRM. Realizing that, why would the music industry want to bring an ad-supported downloading business to US shores? It wouldn’t make any sense.
The only reason record labels have agreed to stand behind Top100.cn is because they know they’re losing loads of cash in China as each day passes and more people pirate music. Piracy isn’t just a problem in China, it’s so commonplace that hardly anyone knows someone that downloads songs legally. Can the same be said for the US where the RIAA is trying its best to crackdown on the small percentage of pirates? I didn’t think so.
Top100.cn is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt at making the Chinese turn to legitimate sources of music and curb piracy in the country. If that ever happens, this service will die and the music industry will try to force DRM on every Chinese person, much like they do with the Western world today.
And as much as I would like to see a service like this in the US and abroad, it just won’t happen.
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Regator, the feed reader and blog search engine that has been in private beta for about a month now, is launching its public beta, which a lot of people can be happy about. Mashable’s Paul Glazowski sang Regator’s praises with his review of its private beta early last month, and after trying out Regator for myself, I can easily see why.
Straddling the search engine and feed reader demographics, Regator attacks the simple concept of helping you find great Web content with one fatal swoop, presenting a tool that’s very attractive to both the average Web surfer and the early adopter crowd. Regator’s highly customizable capabilities for content you find through the site or add yourself means that it presents itself as a customizable feed reader for any type of user with a wide array of interests.
As a starting point for someone that may be entirely new to the blogosphere or simply doesn’t know where to start for a new topic of interest, Regator’s search and recommendation engine works quite well. The user interface is also very easy to use and makes customization of content while surfing simple as well.
With additional exporting options via RSS for things like your Favorite blogs you’ve saved on Regator or a given keyword, you’re able to leverage Regator’s service even if you’re not on its site. I imagine even more direct exporting options will be provided some time in the future, as Regator already offers Twitter, Facebook and email sharing options for content featured on its site. With more integrated direct export options Regator will be able to offer even more customization on a cross-network basis. Lastly, as a collaborative or group tool for shared content within a team or organization, Regator could do a great deal of growth in this direction if it ever sees fit, for both consumer and business applications.
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Video search and aggregation tool Magnify has an update today, which is something we haven’t seen explicitly from the company in a while–it’s been busy launching completely new features and spin-off services.
There are two major prongs to Magnify’s release today: one addresses the need for additional video sources that it aggregates from, and the other concerns the search capabilities of its service. With the added support for video sites including MySpace, Hulu, Vimeo, College Humor, Howcast and MTV Overdrive, Magnify is broadening the Web content from which it pulls, so that you can have a bigger pool in which to cast your net.
This particular upgrade seems like a no-brainer, but it also reminds us that there’s a growing number of sites where video content can be found, and that there’s an added value in supporting more than just YouTube and a handful of other video-sharing sites for its aggregation purposes.
And as expected, Magnify has tweaked its search tools, which goes hand in hand with the added support for the handful of new video services. Magnify has more than doubled the speed of its Automatic Video Discovery service, which means you’ll be able to search all of its supported sites very quickly. It also allows Magnify to reportedly increase its potential for new videos added, from 100,000 daily to 1 million per week.
Speed isn’t the only factor that Magnify improved for its search capabilities. Its search has been enhanced with new channel options allowing users to search by other users, date, and review scores. Search results can then be exported via RSS as well.
What’s particularly beneficial to Magnify’s upgrades is the fact that the company has spent so much time building out its feature set, to include certain webcam support, social network features, and an integrated search tool for bloggers. Given Magnify’s growing platform, the addition of new sites, improved search and filter and sharing capabilities means that Magnify already has an established set of services that will immediately be improved as a result of this new roll-out, affecting its entire user base, regardless of the type of user that employs a certain Magnify service.
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The presidential race between Obama and McCain has been the biggest political celebrity face-off in decades, and now actual celebrities are getting involved one way or another, including JLo, Scarlet and even Paris Hilton with her “campaign ad” video posted to Funny or Die on Monday night.
Meanwhile, You2Gov is giving you yet another opportunity to show your support for one of the presidential candidates and get paid. The site is holding a contest to find the most creative 30 second television ad in support of either Obama or McCain, with $1,000 in cash prizes for the best in show for each political camp. There’s also the chance of having the ad run on television sometime before the election. The challenge starts today, and runs through September 30. Winners will be announced on October 16.
You2Gov, a recently launched site for connecting with government leaders, is a network of citizens that can form groups around topics of interest in order to affect change. With chat, research capabilities, and organizational services available on You2Gov, the hope is that this Web-based resource will offer some of the very tools necessary to find other like-minded individuals and work with them to get a particular message across.
While You2Gov is contending against a very large number of similar sites, this particular contest may help the fledgling startup gain some attention. Because we secretly all want to be like Paris Hilton, even when she’s forced to stick her nose into politics.
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The USDOJ has expressed their intention to seize the property and $53 million in assets of Florida-based “Internet advertising company” AdSurfDaily, according to WebProNews today. The Department of Justice alleges that the company was scarcely a cover for a Ponzi scheme.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, Ponzi schemes are commonly confused with multi-level marketing, which are close but generally lack the strong affiliate marketing cover story and strictly rely on new investors money to pay off earlier investors. The scheme can be counted on to always end in financial disaster for investors at the later stages, but this doesn’t prevent there from being a strong community of folks on the Internet who consistently play the odds, dragging in the unscrupulous to invest and chronicling the rises and falls of the various ‘ventures.’
In the case of AdSurfDaily, it operated under the thinly-guised motif of a “paid auto-surf program,’ a common term for modern Ponzi schemes. ‘Advertisers’ were enticed into the program by promises of a return on advertising dollars spent of 125% - 150%. To recieve the benefit of the full return on investment, advertisers also had to agree to view a few websites that would rotate every day.
As we noted here last month, the founders over at eGold were just subject to DOJ scrutiny as well (pleading guilty to enabling just this sort of criminal activity), and while none of the news reports have specifically made a connection between the two investigations, it’s highly likely that the investigation and cooperation with the authorities on the behalf of eGold led to the actions against ASD.
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Jajah has had a pretty serious year, and the new features it’s releasing just won’t stop coming. The latest on the scene may not be so huge as a new telephony platform, but it will impact users all the same. What is it? A speech-activated translation tool that lets you speak in English and translate into Mandarin (and vice versa). If you’re wondering why Jajah Babel went with Mandarin as its first language released through its translation service, just think of all the folks that will be bumbling around Bejing for the Olympic games.
To find out how this new translation tool actually works, I had a quick call with Jajah CEO Trevor Healy. We did a three-way call to Jajah’s new translation service, which is accessible through its own separate dial-in, offered on a local basis around the globe. Once you’ve dialed in, just speak a phrase into the phone for translation. Jajah’s translation service will repeat this phrase back to you, in order to make sure it heard you correctly. This will also help offset some of your fear as a non-Mandarin speaking user. Once you’ve confirmed the phrase, you can then have Jajah translate it.
So now what?
Hold the phone up to the person you’re trying to communicate with so they can hear the translated phrase in the language they understand. Should they need to, they can immediately use your phone in order to translate another phrase, or they can use their own phone and have a phrase translated from Mandarin back to English. Now you’ve got a traveling translator while in Mandarin-speaking areas of the world. As with all other Jajah applications, the new translation service will be offered as an integrated application for social networks and business applications, to name a few.
Undoubtedly, such translation options fit well with Jajah’s rather new telephony platform, which has already been adopted by Yahoo for integrated VoIP phone call services. There will also be a number of other languages for which Jajah’s translation service will work with, granting it a wide distribution across its existing and new user base. Given the development we’ve seen for integrating voice as an application across a wide array of third-party services (BT’s acquisition of Ribbit was only a week ago), I think Jajah’s new translation option will fit right in with this larger trend.
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Editor’s Note: If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion in “The Startup Review” series, please see the details here.
STARTUP DETAILS:
Company Name: Yoowalk
20 word description: Yoowalk is a no-download virtual world which lets you browse the web, connect with friends, and design your own space in live 3D environment.
CEO’s 100 word description: We are entering in an era of Web 3.0. Web 2.0 rested on social networking, user-generated content, and communication platforms. Our revolutionary service adds 3D to all this, which lets users interact live on the web, congregate with friends, walk around the web together, and share their Internet interests. We are the first to blend these concepts and make them accessible in one click. In three years time, we aim at being the European leader in virtual worlds with 10 million unique visitors.
Mashable’s Take: Yoowalk is a new web-based virtual world that lets you browse the web via your avatar, in a 3D environment. With 3D representations of the Internet, Yoowalk offers an entirely different browsing experience for the web, that almost reminds me of the Chappele Show episode that surmised what the Internet would look like if it were a physical manifestation we could walk through–like a mall. Yoowalk has a similar idea: it’s laid the web out on streets and avenues, starting from more broad categories and narrowing down from there.
In this regard Yoowalk acts somewhat like a generic start page, which is emphasized by the fact that it determines what websites are available through its web-based application. So far the choices are pretty limited, and navigation is poor as actual websites have been modified to fit within the Yoowalk 3D environment and a lot of content is lost as a result. While it’s great that Yoowalk doesn’t require a download for its service, its vision of recreating the web is one of its biggest downfalls, as there’s no need to force users to change their browsing experience or take away from a website’s design and user interface in order to make it 3D.
There are some social aspects of Yoowalk that allow you to see other avatars as you surf its 3D web, and a chat client that enables you to talk to your friends regardless of where they are located. The option to sign into MSN, Yahoo or AOL chat clients also make Yoowalk more interactive and easier to use from a new user standpoint, but there’s no deep integration with Yoowalk and these other three chat clients so far.
Personalized virtual rooms are also available for your creative expression, but the design tool is a bit cumbersome and I’d love to see some relevant connectivity between your activity on Yoowalk and your virtual room–perhaps a message board for new friends, or an activity feed that displays some of the sites that you’ve visited. A bookmarking tool (of sorts) that saves your activity while surfing could also be accessed via these user rooms, and Yoowalk could easily begin collecting data to use towards site recommendations later on down the line.
For website owners, there’s an option to turn your site into a 3D creation on Yoowalk, but longterm there could be additional potential for a Yoowalk API that allows developers to build theme-specific or niche versions of the Yoowalk application, perhaps offering a virtual environment for kids and teens that only allows access to parent-approved sites.
