International, visual:

James Hutchinson: Gov 2.0, Web 2.0 clash over accessibility

Eric Fischer: Overlay of San Francisco vehicle movements for all of June 2010

Joe Eskenazi: Republicans Following Porn on Twitter

Felipe Estaban: Colombia 2.0 – The time is now

John F. Moore: The Social Ecosystem – Developing Social Usage Guidelines

David Forbes: Transparency is an ammo dump

Guy Molyneux, Ruy Teixiera: The Generation Gap on Government

Jon Lee: 7 Reasons Why the City of Los Angeles’ Move to Gmail Scares Me

Have you bought e(G2R) on Empire Avenue?

Mark Headd: The opposite of open government

Alex Howard: Open government is a mindset

Robin Hicks: Australia’s GCIO talks tough at FutureGov forum

Government Technology (video): Meet Colorado’s Chief Data Officer

Christine Pierpoint: The Gov 2.0 Conundrum

Gov20Radio: An Apps Day to Keep Climate Doomsday Away

Much of the hand-wringing in government social media practice – or more so, the decision-making behind whether to have a government social media practice – centers on return on investment, or even “return on engagement.” Does it work, and how do we measure whether it works?
From measuring retweets, to numbers of fans, unique blog hits, to overall influence within sites like Twitter to Facebook, there is a whole industry around measuring social media engagement. The next phase of growth in social media-for-gov best practices is likely to come from the realm of analytics.
For the past couple of months, and particularly over a recent vacation, I’ve been experimenting with a new startup that merges social media and a fantasy stock market with the goal of measure engagement and influence across Web 2.0 communications channels. Edmonton CIO Chris J. Moore first introduced me to Empire Avenue this spring, while it was still in a closed “family and friends” beta. When it launched as an invite-beta soon after, he sent me one and after a week or so (who has time for another site, right?), I signed up. I’ve found the game mechanics of the site to be extremely engaging, and, it is also very interesting to watch what happens when folks sign up, integrate their various social media feeds and then basically ignore the gaming aspects of the site.
Empire Avenue centers around buying and selling stock in people and businesses. But it also functions as social media aggregator, with overnight “market makers” that analyze a broad range of social media metrics, including engagement with followers and growth in connections. Folks who sign up for the site continue to see swings in their share prices even if they never log back in, and even if no one is buying and selling them, all based on measurements of their broader social media activity. Guessing the strength of a profile immediately after someone signs up – by looking at their Twitter account for example – is a popular way of making sound stock picks on Empire Avenue.
Eventually, the EA founders plan to have a real-word advertising function on the platform, with members able to run ads and do profit sharing. Some may be playing with this end game in mind, while others enjoy the networking opportunities of a smaller social media site, some are pure gamers, and others just want to get another measure of their social media influence.
What does this mean for government social media? Well, it’s still a bit early to make many judgments about the site, it’s market-based system and analytical chops. However, it sure is interesting to watch. Today I took a look at three official government accounts that have set up EA profiles, each with at least a few weeks of maturity on the site: City of Manor, TX; Oklahoma City; and the Washington State Department of Transportation. Manor has linked a Twitter account to its EA profile, while OKC has Twitter, Flickr and a blog, and WSDOT has a blog, Twitter, Flickr and a news feed. Right away, from EA, I can follow these agencies there or on Twitter, can see how many followers they have, and view a simple report on their activity. I see that Manor has 492 Twitter followers, up two in the last week, and sent one tweet in the past week, down 4. I find that OKC has 3,582 Twitter followers and added 7. WSDOT’s very robust Twitter account has 9,047 followers after adding 47 in the past week. Facebook pages are not yet supported, but for personal profiles, the same kind of stats are included. Even more interesting is the stock price for these accounts. Each has been almost inactive on EA for the past few weeks, but their feeds keep pushing new content for their site followers and those analytical market makers. With 7 being the floor price for any stock, Manor is at 8.271, OKC at 9.409, and WSDOT, with it’s very robust social media activity across several platforms, at 22.476.
EA goes public beta (no invites required) on July 28, and it will be interesting to see how its market system plays out in the larger social media community, and in government engagement efforts.

Some like it digital:

OhMyGov!: Defunct federal websites live on in CyberCemetary

Jeremy Polofsky: U.S. looks to improve disabled access to the Internet

PTI: Virtual Summit on Apps for Local Government

Good: Vote on your favorite infographic on childhood obesity

Thomas Gegenhuber: Ride and surf

What, it’s Saturday?

John Letzing: Google misses key deadline for high-profile LA contract

Russell Nichols: Memphis Cracks Crime Trends with Forecasting Technology

Trisha Torrey: Can You Name That Pill?

Peter Flaherty: White House Emails Show More Extensive Improper Contact with Google

Alex Howard: Web 2.0 risks and rewards for federal agencies

Attia Nasar: Innovation 2.0 – Seth Godin

Check out Manor.govfresh: big ideas for local America (media partner)

Jonah Lehrer: Twitter Strangers

Alex Howard: Social Security in the Gov 2.0 age

Paul Karr: Alex Howard ’98

Dannielle Blumenthal: Should the Government Hire Eminem?

Lindy Kyzer: Setting standards for social media

Luke Fretwell: Gov 2.0 and ‘Reinventing Government’

Abby Phillip and Kim Hart: Bringing government up to data