Holy Cow, The White House Has a Digg Clone
The White House has launched a new web site where anyone can submit and vote up their most important questions for President Obama about the economy. That's right - the White House has a Digg clone! At least for the next two days. Activity on the site will culminate in Obama addressing the top questions on Thursday, March 26.
Once registered on the site Open for Questions, it looks like you can search for questions, vote on questions that are already listed, and submit your own. As it stands right now, the trend definitely seems to point to more voting for existing questions over new questions being asked. At the top of each topic area there is a new (random?) question along with the highest-voted questions in descending order.
The site also keeps a tally of the number of questions and votes that you cast. You can go back and revisit those with links provided on the left if you want to change your vote or just re-visit the questions you voted for. Finally, it appears that each submitter is a hyperlink, so if you see a question that is particularly challenging, you can click on the submitter's name and see if they have any other questions in other topic areas.
You only have a couple of days to get your questions and votes in, so hurry on over to Open for Questions and get yourself registered. You may even hear your question being read by President Obama next Thursday!
Update: Commenter Baratunde let us know the software driving the site is called Google Moderator. Taking a look at his earlier blog post on the transition; the software does look remarkably similar. Thanks, Baratunde!
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this is based on Google Moderator. Less digg.
check my post from December 10 2008. they used this system during the transition
http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/2008/12/obamas-changegov-allows-open-questions-based-on-google-moderator/
I'm not positive, but I *think* this is a google initiative. Actually--- yes I am it's google moderator (an AppSpot app), apparently running on the whitehouse's site. It's a bit odd that they're using an iFrame to pop it in, not entirely usable, but whatever.
Thanks for the quick response and link, Baratunde and Judson. I'll see about updating my post to include that information.
Isn't this the same tech from salesforce.com that powered the change.gov "Citizen's Briefing Room" a few months ago? http://blogs.zdnet.com/crm/?p=115
This look EXACTLY like Google's TipJar, not Digg.
Unfortunately, Google Moderator is not at all equipped for handling the filtering and consolidation to make sense of thousands of "idea submissions."
While I'm glad to see ANY improvement in transparency and interaction with the government (where is that batch of "lost e-mail" from the previous administration anyway?), there are plenty of smarter examples of how to engage communities - including filtering and comments ala Digg, slashdot, uservoice, ideascale and many others.
They've opened up a huge funnel on the front-end, but the rest of the process of filtering, vetting, debating, running to ground, and feeding back on success or failure? Nothing. It's an overblown suggestion box. It's a step forward when a LEAP is entirely and easily possible.
Here's hoping for some quick iterations to improve this engagement with the voting public. We can collectively do much better.
Is it 2008 again?
This website was up way before we even elected Obama.
ok, i'm a little scared by a lot of these questions. I mean, I wasn't expecting genius or anything, but it bothers me to realize just how many people there are that seem to believe that the federal government has complete and absolute control over everything and anything.
Posted by: Jason Wehmhoener
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March 24, 2009 6:55 PM
uservoices would be awesome! i love it especially because they force a "cost" to each question by making you use points. the ability to link to specific questions and comment on them would also be very beneficial.
thanks for updating and for the credit. keep rockin RWW!
Hey, the idea for this sort of thing is not new. The UK has been using similar ideas for a while. I met the founder of this concept at an Internet Advocacy Rountable a couple years ago.
Link to the Prime Minister's Site
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/
They use e-petitions as a way to vote up ideas.
Internet Advocacy Rountable
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/events/IAR.html
If you want to see a more sophisticated implementation of how the White House might work if it were run completely democratically by thousands of people over the internet, you can check out http://whitehouse2.org/
Wow dude that is kinda scary!
RT
www.privacy-tools.us.tc
If the software is Google-based does that mean it's advertising-supported?
thanks for updating and for the credit. keep rockin RWW!
thanks
that i need
Nicely said, I enjoy the time that it took to research and write. Great work
Now that the contest is over, it should be clear to many that the system worked as it was designed: the weak questions rose to the top and BHO was never really asked something he should have been asked. That's the same thing that happened in his past efforts and in all the other efforts that use the same voting system.
A better way to do things is described at my name's link.
Props to comment from Dan Keldsen. After 8 years of an administration with it's collective head in the sand. I'm pleased to see the new administration embrace technology in reaching out to the citizens ... even if the effort falls short of what is readily available out there to do the task. Here is to hoping Team Obama builds on this.
Few days back, Google launched a service called TipJar using same application Google Moderator - link http://www.google.com/tipjar
Anyway, thanks for sharing.
Very interesting.....
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