Twittering Governments

We've been looking at different Web 2.0 sites and exploring how best clients can use them in conjunction with our system and on their own.

One site I like is Twitter.  Twitter allows an organization or an individual to post a couple of lines about what they are doing at a given moment.  This overlaps with the Facebook "status" update so I thought it wouldn't be worth the effort.  However, now that I've got Twitter working well with Facebook, I can update my status on Twitter and it gets posted everywhere.  Twitter is easier to use and something that can be updated quickly from a cell phone or blackberry.

I don't have any specific ideas yet for interconnections between GovDelivery and Twitter, but in looking around, I did see a lot of Twitter accounts being managed by government agencies and public officials.  Take a look at the GovDelivery Twitter Account and Who We are Following.  You can also take a look at my "young" Twitter account.

Here are just a few:
http://twitter.com/pueblo81009
http://twitter.com/USAgov

NASA has many offices and programs using Twitter.  As usual, they are very advanced in use of Web 2.0 tools.

and lots of public officials:
http://twitter.com/MayorMark
http://twitter.com/MayorRTRybak

Why does this matter?  Any government entity has a lot of information to offer.  Twitter is an easy way to pull forward and call attention to the information that you think might be most interesting or valuable.  I've blogged before on the difference between "give me what I want" content and "give me what you think I need" content. 

Twitter allows an agency to highlight for me the information that I might need and to do it in a simple and interesting way. 

Comments

[Alex, aka SocialButterfly]

on the Twitter fan wiki, there is also a full working list government Twitter accounts. I also recently wrote a post about Government and Twitter, as well as expanding that given list here: http://fly4change.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/the-governments-a-twitter-take-2-its-official/

The post was prompted by the house passing new regulation that congress members can communicate with constituents via 3rd party web sites, which includes Twitter.

Great blog. I've added it to my RSS reader. =)

[Scott Burns]

Thanks for the post. We appreciate the thoughtful comments and enjoyed your post on Congress being allowed to Twitter as well as your very helpful list of Twittering governments-- I ran into Mayor RT Rybak of Minneapolis (@MayorRTRybak for anyone using Twitter) in the airport yesterday and talked to him about his Twittering. Was pleased to see him listed as he is Mayor of the City across the river from us here in St. Paul.