Comments for GOP, RSS, and API! Oh My! US Congress Republicans' New Site

GOP, RSS, and API! Oh My! US Congress Republicans' New Site

2009-02-04T08:09:06Z

We have spent a great deal of time covering US President Barack Obama's Web presence, from the Democrat's social media strategies to whitehouse.gov. So when the Republicans in the US Congress released a new version of their site - complete with RSS feeds and an API - we felt it only appropriate to give the site a bi-partisan once over. And while the site has received an obvious facelift, it's the underlying functionality - and access to information - that drew our attention.

]]> It's no secret that we here at ReadWriteWeb love RSS. And in that regard, the GOP.gov has a great deal from which to choose. The site offers access to more than 35 separate topics via RSS feeds. The topics range from "Bills" to the "War on Terror."

Unfortunately, a number of the feeds were throwing errors as of this writing, due to stray ampersands or other issues. But those errors will be resolved. So, if you're interested in tracking what's happening, we've compiled a Yahoo! Pipes amalgamation of all of GOP.gov feeds.

Also of interest is the new GOP.gov API, which allows users to access information on legislation directly from the site.

"The GOP.gov API (Application Programming Interface) makes it possible for you to receive data from GOP.gov using HTTP POST calls. There are many situations where this could be useful, including posting information on blogs, websites, software applications and other government webpages."

It will be interesting to see how people begin to leverage this access point. Suffice it to say, the potential for interesting mashups using this data is huge. And those mashups could give us an entirely different way of visualizing the US government at work. Sunlight Labs has taken the opportunity to test drive the API, and they offer some early findings.

Errors aside, the accessibility afforded by the new GOP.gov marks another momentous step forward for the US government in allowing citizens to access information - in near real-time - about the inner workings of the Federal machine. And every step in that direction brings us closer to realizing the true transparency in which the ideals of democracy reside.

Comment from dh on 2009-02-22

2009-02-23T04:03:14Z

Since they're both .gov, maybe they're done by the same government-paid designers. But that would make economic sense too so, I'm probably wrong.

Comment from Youssef on 2009-02-08

2009-02-08T15:23:08Z

Very similar colour pallete and type to whitehouse.gov

It works!

Comment from Tony on 2009-02-04

2009-02-05T01:07:00Z

Ok Devver, you win :-) To me some of the GOP elements still seem stylisticly reminiscent of both whitehouse.gov and barackobama.com, but maybe these can be passed off as just a current trend. Overall, both designs look a lot more professional that they did a year ago, and it's good to see Washington learning how to better use the web.

Comment from Devver on 2009-02-04

2009-02-04T23:03:31Z

So are you saying they copied BarackObama.com?

If you look at the two, there is no similarity, other than lots of shadowing and gradients - which everyone uses and has used since the beginning of Photoshop.

There are plenty of crappy rip offs of Barack Obama's blue-state-digital sites. This, however, does not appear to be one of them. If they did rip it off, imho, they did it pretty well.

Comment from Tony on 2009-02-04

2009-02-04T21:17:51Z

Devver: good point, but whitehouse.gov had pretty much exactly the same styling as Obama's earlier change.gov from his election campaign, so I don't think your argument holds water.

Comment from Devver on 2009-02-04

2009-02-04T20:21:46Z

Considering that the GOP.gov folks have spent over 6 months working on the development and design, far before Change.gov or the new WhiteHouse.gov were launched, I think its safe to say that this design is their own.

They launched only a week after WhiteHouse.gov did, so I can't see how they could make the site look the way it did, and launch it, within an 8 or 9 day period.

Comment from Tony on 2009-02-04

2009-02-04T18:12:22Z

Am I the only one that thinks the new GOP is strangely remnicient of Obama's change.gov and whitehouse.gov? Check out the similarities in terms of font styles, use of the light gray & off white elements, the large central image, etc. Maybe this following of the Dems by the GOP is a new theme:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=217026&title=Elephant-in-the-Room

Comment from Maarten on 2009-02-04

2009-02-04T12:34:01Z

(start rant)GET is for GETTING data, POST is for POSTING (end rant)