i202 Fall 2009 School of Information, UC Berkeley

This article, published by the BBC is available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8241029.stm.

The author talks about the need for the technology industry to make use of the huge amount of government data the Obama administration is making available to the public.

However, the problem faced, as noted by the article is that all that is being made available is raw data. Innovators need to take advantage of this opportunity to collect these data and combine them into useful information to make the public more knowledgable about the workings of their country.

The best way to think of this new era of data transparency is to think of government 2.0 as a platform which others can build upon and make use of to provide information to others.

One example of government 2.0 being successful is a platform set up by the District of Columbia, titled Apps for Democracy. To date, the platform boasts 47 iPhone, Facebook and web applications that use the platform's data such as real-time crime feeds, school test scores and so on.

There are, of course, critics of the push for government 2.0. Internet guru Tim O'Reilly sums his concerns up perfectly, noting "In terms of unlocking information, it's not a question of fast enough, it's a matter of strategically enough. The government is so large and there is so much data there that the real question is how much of it is really useful. This is why it is important for the government to think strategically about what does 'government as a platform' mean?"