Starting next week, the public will be asked to brainstorm and submit ideas for improving federal websites. Through the National Dialogue to Improve Federal Websites, set to launch Monday on USA.gov, citizens and web experts can share ideas about user experiences, design and content of federal websites. Those suggestions will guide how federal websites are created, used and managed in the future. People can submit and vote on ideas, and General Services Administration will moderate the two weeks of online discussion. The initiative is part of a larger effort by the White House to cut waste and improve customer service. In…
Browsing: Web 2.0
The Energy Department today expanded its digital outreach efforts by launching a blog, a Facebook page and a Twitter account. The department already has a You Tube channel and a Flickr page, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu has more than 13,400 fans on his own Facebook page. Expanding its social networking efforts is part of a larger attempt to increase transparency, make the department more accessible to average Americans and better engage with citizens, Chu wrote in the inaugural blog post. Our goal is to use the Energy Blog and our other social media outlets to show you who we are, what…
The Health and Human Services Department is tapping some of the same social media tools used to spread the word about salmonella-tainted peanuts to handle the budding pistachio crisis. Already, the Food and Drug Administration’s recall twitter feed, which helped to quickly spread information about the nearly 4,000 products recalled during the peanut crisis, is tweeting about recalled pistachio products. Other tools HHS used during the salmonella outbreak in peanuts could come into play as the department shares information about pistachios, Andrew Wilson, a Web manager for HHS’s Web Communications and New Media division, told Federal Times today.