Dash is best known as a blogger for his articles like this 2007 explanation of LOLCat grammatical structure and this 2009 explanation of the real-time web. Can the man who's explained so much to the rest of us help the US government adopt new online technology? That's quite a task.

Expert Labs is non-profit and non-partisan but we're moving with the speed and passion of true believers. We're providing funding and resources to help create some of the coolest new technology on the web, and as part of the largest general scientific society in the world, we have access to the smartest minds around. Put those together with your help, and we'll be making our country better in no time.

Expert Labs will be a part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and funded by the MacArthur Foundation, Caroline McCarthy reports at Cnet.

Dash wrote this Summer that "I think the most promising new startup of 2009 is one of the least likely: The executive branch of the federal government of the United States." We've been far more critical here at ReadWriteWeb of the Obama Administration's efforts. The much anticipated Data.gov, for example, was so unexciting in its implementation that watchdog group the Sunlight Foundation launched a competitor to it.

The web changes very fast and government tends to change very, very slowly.

Dash's Vision Appears Different From Tim O'Reilly's

The organization will aim to facilitate production of applications to serve government. Those apps will be cloud-based. This is a different kind of approach, I'd say, than the one that Web 2.0 Expo founder Tim O'Reilly is taking in trying to build a "government as a platform."

Expert Labs says it has "a mandate to help policy makers in the U.S. Federal Government tap into the expertise of their fellow citizens."

O'Reilly, on the other hand, advocates a "government as platform" that would supply raw digital data and other forms of support for private sector innovators to build on top of. "How do you think like a platform provider?" O'Reilly asked in an interview with us this Summer.

"We've moved our government from a lean vehicle for collective action, and over the last 200 years it has become so strong that it's now 40% of GDP. I want to go back to the original vision of the role of government: a convener of things that we as individuals and companies can't do alone. Standard setting, pilot programs; government providing enabling technologies for citizens to serve themselves."

Dash's incubator will help technologists help the government; O'Reilly's vision is to help the government help technologists. These two visions may be complimentary, but they certainly seem different. Which will be more effective at changing the world? Government can be a slow enough mover that it's hard to say. Both are thought provoking, but neither vision will be easy to make real.

Photo graciously licensed as Creative Commons by Joi Ito.

Facebook and the Persuasive (no, not pervasive, persuasive) Technology Lab at Stanford launched what they call the "dot peace" campaign today. There's reason to pause before enthusiastically supporting the effort. There are other ways that Facebook could make the world a better place and there are some reasons why the company deserves caution more than trust when it comes to its political agenda.

Sometimes that means working to change peoples' expectations of privacy. All's fair in love, war and social networking, perhaps, so more power to Facebook for seeking to tilt the balance towards sharing and away from privacy. Users could vote with their feet, or their browsers in this case - but that's complicated by the fact that Facebook keeps all the social capital users build up locked into its system if they want to leave.

That's big picture background, but here are three reasons why Facebook's role in a movement to foster world peace deserves to be questioned.

Set the Data Free, Already

The new Peace.Facebook page has some really interesting data displayed on it, showing how many people from opposite sides of historical conflicts have become friends on Facebook over the last 24 hours, surveys about the viability of peace and other information.

This is an ongoing part of the story and one we'll have a lot more to say about in coming weeks and months - but for now we'll just say that if Facebook really wants to change the world for good it should open up its unique birds-eye view of our behavior and interactions.

In the 1960's anti-racist activists were able to prove that banks were systematically denying mortgage loans to African Americans. Redlining, as it was called, was exposed through analysis of data. When data is opened to analysis, patterns can be discovered - some of them unjust acts of systematic violence. The world is an unjust place and the social activity of 300 million people on Facebook will inevitably be useful in exposing some of those patterns of injustice.

Shallow Political Analysis

The first example of peace-through-Facebook you'll find highlighted on the new Peace.Facebook page is a march organized in the nation of Colombia against the leftist insurgent group FARC.

As writer Eric Eldon put it a year ago on VentureBeat: "Thing is, right-wing Colombian guerrillas with close ties to the country's U.S.-backed government have also been implicated in numerous terrorist activities. That topic seems to have been covered in much greater detail by European media than their counterparts here in the U.S... If I were Facebook... I'd think hard about using that example."

The group protested against, the FARC, is one side of the longest-running civil war in the world. They may be a violent, authoritarian, drug-corrupted bunch of thugs but their opponents are a shadowy paramilitary group made up in part of Colombian police who remove their uniforms at night and chainsaw off the heads of civilians in towns suspected of offering FARC support. The US is deeply implicated, in bad ways, and it's a seriously ugly situation. It's among the worst in Latin America and there are some pretty gruesome stories about Latin America in the 80's in particular.

Facebook wants to pick sides in that fight? People may argue that it was a march against violence that was organized on Facebook, but that's one of the most violent countries on earth and Facebook refers to the march as anti-FARC. Since when is organizing street protests against one party in a brutal, decades-old fight a means of helping "people better understand each other?"

That looks like a dangerously shallow understanding of how the world works and what the obstacles to peace are.

Peter Thiel

Facebook's first and most important investor is PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. Thiel is a big believer in what's called The Singularity, defined by the Singularity Institute as "the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence." Thiel believes that investing in the Singularity means thinking ahead about how humanity can benefit from our relationships with these smarter-than-human machines instead of being hurt by them. He says that the Singularity will either lead to the biggest economic boom in human history or it will lead to an apocalypse. Literally.

Facebook's machine intelligence is very real; its system is learning quickly about how humans interact and how different people respond to different events, for example. Let's hope that the very wealthy Thiel, the very young Zuckerberg and the rest of the company's insular brain-trust can steer that machine towards truly helping humanity and not making an even worse mess of things.

Given this dodgy philosophical background, it would be easier to trust Facebook as a humble servant of a global movement for world peace - doing its part by facilitating communication and opening its data to observation by the world at large. Instead we get very selective data interpretation done behind closed doors and presented to hundreds of millions of people as a way to take action.

I can't help but feel uneasy about all this, as much as I enjoy using Facebook.

According to Daly, an Apple representative spoke to him by phone to inform him that the rejection of the app was due to its "politically charged" nature. Well that, and the fact that Apple doesn't allow political apps from single developers.

Apple may understandably want to distance their company from any hot-button political issue such as health care for fear that accepting political applications would damage their image (at least among those with opposing viewpoints). However, in this case it's a matter of them arbitrarily deciding that one political app can't make the cut when many others already did. For example, during Obama's campaign, there was an "official" Obama application which included news, event listings, media, and details on where the candidate stood on various issues. Was that not politically charged? McCain supporters probably thought so.

Daly also notes that Apple currently carries "Drudge Reader," an app that allows for mobile reading of the "The Drudge Report" website. While this is a news-based application, the site is generally regarded as being conservative in tone. So again, this could be considered a politically charged application, especially among those who disagree with Matt Drudge's opinions and views.

So where is Apple drawing the line? Daly says that the app's rejection is, in part, due to the fact that it's a product of a single developer. At least, that's what he claims Apple told him. Apparently, political candidates are allowed to release apps expressing their views, but single developers are not.

Why Not Allow Political Apps?

The real question here is why not? Let's say that Apple approved the application, what would the fallout be? Would those against the views expressed in the app actually refuse to purchase an iPhone or iPod Touch? Would they dump their Apple devices for a politically-neutral Pre, Blackberry, or Google Android smartphone? All but the most excitable zealots would not. In fact, the result would probably be the release of another application from a different developer expressing an opposing viewpoint. Would that be such a bad thing?

Considering how the rejected application's design tapped into the phone's GPS to deliver personalized, localized political information, it could have really set the stage for a slew of grassroots apps that used the mobile platform to rally the public to various causes or issues. Tap to call your congressperson, tap to customize and send an email to your senator, for example. In time, it's likely that both sides of every issue would be properly represented, keeping Apple out of the spotlight as supporting any particular political opinion themselves.

To date, it's been Apple's MO to distance themselves and reject anything remotely controversial, whether that's mature apps, apps from their competition, and obviously now, politics too. Ironically, by doing so, they actually invite the scrutiny and ill will they were trying to avoid. At the end of the day, though, Apple's iTunes Store is not the Internet where anyone and everyone can have their say - it's a closed, tightly regulated platform where developers have to play by Apple's rules or not play at all.

A far more interesting statistic is that 15% of all Internet users have left comments on websites about political or social issues, or posted images or written blog posts related to politics or social issues. What is even more interesting, though not surprising, is that young adults between 18 and 29 are far more likely to use social networks as a venue for political and civic engagement than older users. These younger users who engage in political activity online are also far more likely to participate in politics offline.

Social Media Might Level the Playing Field

Social media is mostly the domain of younger Internet users and while young adults (18-24) are, as a group, less interested in political activities online, they are far more likely than any other group to use blogs and social networking sites to engage in political discussions. About 34% of young adults make political use of social networking sites and 34% post political material on the Internet.

Users under 35 represent 72% of those users who make political use of social networks. In addition, the income and education gap for those who engage in political activities on social networks is far less pronounced when compared to those who use other forums.

Will These Trends Continue?

What will be interesting to watch, the Pew study points out, is how these younger users will use these existing networks as they get older. It will also be interesting to see if these developments will mean that socio-economic status will become less of an indicator of civic engagement, or if these new technologies will create new barriers of entry for those with a lower income and education level.

Given that the US just experienced a highly contested election cycle and is in the middle of a heated debate about health care right now, we have to wonder, though, if these numbers will continue to hold true over the next few years or if they were just a blip on the radar.

About the Photo

The posters that popped up across the country were based on Alkhateeb's photo, but had the TIME magazine logo and branding removed and had added the word "socialism" at the bottom. Alkhateeb wasn't responsible for these changes - a yet-to-be-identified person is behind the posters' creation.

In fact, you may be surprised to hear that the Obama/Joker image wasn't even meant to be political commentary, according to Alkhateeb. That's quite ironic given that it has now embroiled him in this intense political debate. Instead, says the college student, he was just messing around after discovering an online tutorial that explained how to "Jokerize" photographs using Adobe Photoshop. It seems that Alkhateeb doesn't particularly care about politics himself, having chosen to abstain from voting in November since he felt his state (Illinois) was already sewn up and decided before the polls opened. His views on Obama aren't particularly one-sided either. Alkhateeb favors the democratic viewpoint on foreign relations but tends to side with Republicans on domestic issues.

In a recent L.A. Times profile on Alkhateeb, it's reported that the photo generated over 20,000 page views during the time it was hosted on the photo-sharing website Flickr.com. However, as of last Friday, Flickr removed the photo from their site. Why? Alkhateeb says he received an email from the company stating it had to be taken down due to "copyright infringement concerns." (Apparently, TIME magazine wasn't too happy seeing their brand associated with this sort of political commentary.)

What About Free Speech?

But isn't this sort of political commentary, political parody in fact, protected as a form of free speech? Noted photographer and blogger Thomas Hawk thinks it is, citing a precedent for fair use (Folsom v Marsh) which states "if you produce something that is transformative, and not derivative, then it's fair use." Although Hawk isn't a lawyer, he may be right on this one. Says Corynne McSherry, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit that defends digital rights, Alkhateeb has a strong fair use defense if he was ever sued. "You really want to think twice about going after a political commenter," she noted.

This wouldn't be the first time Flickr got involved with political censorship. Hawk also blogged about how the site deleted the account of a user named Shepherd Johnson after he made critical comments about Obama in the Official White House Photostream back in June.

So is this yet another case of Flickr engaging in censorship? Or are they legitimately protecting themselves from these "copyright infringement" claims? (Flickr won't comment on this since a company policy prohibits them from discussing issues surrounding one particular user.)

What do you think about this issue? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Upon first seeing the resignation coverage, even I wondered why Tina Fey was continuing to beleaguer Palin with her spot-on impersonation. After a few minutes I realized only Andy Samberg would have the gall to produce a Saturday Night Live skit of this length and settled in to watch Palin defer her duties to Republican Lieut. Governor Shawn Parnell.

In 2008, Palin Halloween costume posts were extremely popular, a NYC bar saw record customers for their widely promoted Palin drag show and BoingBoing even featured a Hustler film touting a Palin lookalike.

While last year's election would not have been dull, it appears that Sarah Palin and her many iterations were the internet's comic relief in an environment that might have otherwise been staunch. In fact, Palin took the brunt of ridicule on the Republican side while John McCain only came under scrutiny for his advanced age.

So the question remains, did Americans turn out to polls in record numbers because of their wholehearted belief in Barack Obama, or was a portion of that due to a mainstream distaste for Sarah Palin?

Said Palin in her resignation speech, "You are naive right now if you don't see a full court press from the national level picking away right now - a good point guard. Here's what she does, she drives through a full court press, protecting the ball... she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can win. And that's exactly what I'm doing..."

Michael Jordan was a great point guard and he didn't quit the first time to help the Chicago Bulls, he quit to pursue a Minor League baseball career. When Palin says she's going to "make a positive difference from outside the Governor's office," do you think she's going to launch a presidential campaign, land a talk show deal or do something else?

SMS service, which political dissidents had used to spread messages and organize protests, has been restricted since June 11, causing many Iranians to use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other social sites to broadcast and communicate.

Iran's broken digital communication infrastructure caused many Iranians to turn to services such as Twitter, using proxies to work around government restrictions for web use. Twitter became so integral to Iranians' communication, particularly with the wider global community, that the U.S. State Department asked Twitter to postpone scheduled maintenance which would have occurred in the immediate aftermath of the election and resultant protests. Other services rushed to add Persian translation features.

Hopefully, the unblocking of text messaging in Iran is a sign that communication channels are returning to normal. So, does this mean that everyone's new favorite color, "Solidarity Green," will begin to fade away from social web avatars sometime soon? Once the country and its government emerge from crisis mode, what news will come from Iran, and what will the Internet have to say about it?

For those of you who've not had the pleasure of residing in our nation's capital and the outlying cities and suburbs of Virginia and Maryland, public transpo is a large part of commuter culture. So, based on the Apps for Democracy feedback, the D.C. Department of Transportation got together with the Office of Planning and the office of the city's CTO to develop Where's My Bus? It's a mobile application (that works on the web, as well) for getting users real-time GPS information on buses along the five-route D.C. Circulator system.

So the city launched a contest for developers to use the data to solve some of the city's problems, allotting $50,000 in prize money. The first year's results included 47 mobile, Facebook, and web apps with an estimated value of more than $2.6 million. Smart town.

Here's more on this year's contest, dubbed the Community Edition:

In the first phase of the project, problems and issues were identified through a crowdsourced, open gov-type site, and developers were challenged accordingly in a second phase. App submissions for this year's projects end at 11:30 tonight. We wish we'd heard about it earlier, because this sounds like the kind of thing every city could undertake with great results. It might even scale for a state or national level contest.

Anyhow, the Where's My Bus app was developed by government offices to respond to citizens' stated need for real-time public transportation information. The app data is also being made available to the public to encourage private developers to improve on the model and release their own, even better apps.

According to an email we received from the app developers, "Harriet Tregoning, director of the DC Office of Planning, and Gabe Klein, director of the DC Department of Transportation see it, giving people up-to-the-minute information on where their next bus is, in the palm of their hands, has the potential to transform the experience of using public transit."

Here are a few screenshots of the dead simple app in action:

Kudos to the city for initiating Apps for Democracy and for taking the first step to modernizing and mobilizing public transportation. We can't wait to see how private developers will expand on this application.

Upon the appearance of a tenuously connected web of blogs, sites, wikis, and forums, many were excited about the refreshing availability of public channels for dialogue between ordinary Americans and policy makers when it comes to deciding what the 21st century American government will look like. On the other hand, the participation in these initiatives has been dwarfed by what one might see on ICanHasCheezburger. In spite of what could be seen as lackluster citizen response, The Open Government initiative's final drafting phase, which was to have closed already, has been extended until July 3.

Phase One: "Thousands" Participated

The first phase of this program was a public online brainstorming session, which began May 21 and ended June 2. According to an Office of Science and Technology Policy blog post:

Some suggested creating a government-wide intranet and social networking tool to share contact information, resources, and otherwise facilitate collaboration. Others looked to flexible, third-party Web 2.0 tools, such as Wordpress, Wikimedia, Ning, and Drupal to strengthen collaboration. Still others recommended the use of Strategy Markup Language (StratML) to enable potential partners to more easily discover each other based upon common missions, visions, values, goals, objectives, and stakeholders.

While the site stated that mere thousands of participants were logged, it also contained language indicating that the most enthusiastic and engaged users were federal employees already working within government agencies.

Phase Two: Around Four Thousand Mini-Posts

An Open Government Dialogue page was then created - and largely ignored by users - as a second phase for discussion in this initiative toward openness.

What started off as a good idea apparently devolved into typically polarized flame threads and partisan insults. Serious suggestions about healthcare reform received comments numbering in the single digits, while politically weighted one-liners about Sarah Palin prompted hundreds of responses. Moderation of inappropriate or irrelevant topics and comments seemed as absent from the discussion as the deep thoughts of policy wonks who could have helped elevate the conversation. The Open Dialogue was closed, according to the site, on June 26.

Phase Three: Extended With Fewer Than 1,000 Participants So Far

An Open Government Directive page for a drafting phase has now been extended until July 3. Although the OSTP blog states that "well over 100 drafts of open government recommendations" were submitted by users, contributors number just 201 users, and fewer than 1,000 ratings have been registered by the site.

For example, what should have been a hot topic (enabling citizens' participation in government using new media) on the wiki-like MixedInk site only had 18 contributors.

Making Sense of the Numbers

Although measuring engagement isn't necessarily always a numbers game, when online debate, collaboration, and conversation is a stated goal of a project, it would seem that a higher percentage of the target audience (Internet-using Americans) should have been involved, if only through comments and ratings.

Millions of Americans have Internet access - around 75 percent of the population, according to a Nielsen report - and around 70 percent of those users are also using social media, according to a study from MarketTools. Even if we generously estimate the number of Open Government Dialogue participants at 10,000, the results are disappointing:

As the Open Government project's third phase draws to a speedy close, we are left wondering whether the initiative ran too silent and too deep for the average American to know or care about it, let alone feel that he or she could contribute to a meaningful, measurable dialog.

Do you think the U.S. government did an adequate job of publicizing its Open Government efforts? Do you think political and technology bloggers with a critical mass of traffic should have done more to spread the word and encourage user participation, much in the way that music television channels consistently harass youngsters to "rock the vote"?

Do you think that trends of citizen apathy have finally peaked to a point that - even when tools for participation are free and available via a simple Internet connection - no one cares enough to weigh in?

Or do you think that engagement measurement for this project is skewed, that meaningful and representative conversation actually has occurred through the Open Government websites? We look forward to reading your thoughts and encourage U.S. citizens to drop by the drafting phase website, as well.

One man in particular is staging a protest against the censorship: He is calling for everyone in China to abandon the Internet on the day the new rule takes effect. According to GlobalPost, Beijing artist and prominent political critic Ai Weiwei wants other Chinese citizens to realize their own power.

Weiwei has a reputation for being a hugely prolific blogger, generating around 3,000 posts in his first three years of writing online. He also uses Twitter, Chinese microblogging service Fanfou, and other sites to spread the word about freedom of expression and overt criticism of the government in China.

On July 1, he is calling for all of China's 300 million Internet users to completely log off for the day. In the original post, even Ai noted, "Chinese people are very practical. They think 'Oh, what's that going to do?'" He is aware the action he's requesting is huge; however, he feels that even a small gesture of protest will have an impact.

In his own words, "A small act is worth a million thoughts."

Given Westerners' sudden bout of green-tinted solidarity with Iranian protesters, we do wonder if Weiwei's call to action (via online inaction) will spread beyond China. What effect do you think Weiwei's protest will have? How can those of us in other countries best express our own disapproval of that nation's censorship policies? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

In the aftermath of the election, during which a (some say statistically improbable landslide) victory for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was announced, the social media buzz grew into a roar as a meme began to circulate: Where Is My Vote. A website, several Facebook pages, and now thousands of tweets have ensured few social web users have not yet heard of the controversy and the Iranian government's response of censorship.

"In coordination with Twitter," Stone wrote, "our network host had planned this upgrade for tonight. However, our network partners at NTT America recognize the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran... Our partners are taking a huge risk, not just for Twitter, but also the other services they support worldwide--we commend them for being flexible in what is essentially an inflexible situation. We chose NTT America Enterprise Hosting Services early last year specifically because of their impeccable history of reliability and global perspective."

Citizens Had Taken to Twitter to Report and Find News

Although, as noted above, sources cannot be verified at this time, the vast majority of tweets we have seen tell stories of violent military reactions to protesters:

Many more tweets are linking to news coverage and photo or video evidence of what is happening on the ground during these protests.

Iranian Censorship of the Social Web

The Wall Street Journal reported this afternoon that many inside the country have resorted to overseas proxies to continue to use the websites. However, as proxies appeared on the web, they were gradually blocked. Many are now calling for users to stop publicly announcing proxies and use private channels such as email instead.

Blocked Hashtags, Changed Locations, & Other Misinformation

Still more non-Iranian users are changing their Twitter profile locations and time zones to reflect that they are in Iran. These users are often also posting green-tinted versions of their avatars. Some say this is a show of solidarity; other users insist this action will somehow "screw with the government's head."

As one Twitter user said and as several others would likely agree, "Most of the people on Twitter are [expletive deleted] retarded."

Changing one's avatar and location would likely do little to affect the Iranian government; these actions are simply a sign to a user's followers that he or she has at least a cursory interest in Iran current events.

As the conflict continues, Twitter users are reminded that the best, most useful information to share is that which is most verifiable and hence most likely to be accurate. Retweeting biased or exaggerated accounts damages any cause by feeding a hype cycle and drawing attention away from the heart of the matter. At the very least, users should attempt to search for and verify information before passing it on.

The presidential elections in Iran are being held on June 12, 2009 and will be the country's 10th such election. There are 3 leading candidates right now. Incumbant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is running against Iran Reform Movement candidate and former Prime Minister Mousavi. Former Speaker of the Majlis (Parliament) Mehdi Karroubi, another Reformist candidate, also intends to run.

As All Facebook's Nick O'Neill puts it, "unfortunately for the Iranians, they have a regime in place that doesn't support freedom of speech and would prefer to run a dictatorship". Those of us who enjoy such freedoms should do our part to make sure that censorship like this never happens to us. We wish our brothers and sisters in Iran the best of luck.

Facebook Response:

When we first learned of this story we immediately contacted Facebook to see what they had to say. They were gracious to respond swiftly with this comment from a Facebook spokesperson:

"We are disappointed to learn of reports that users in Iran may not have access to
Facebook, especially at a time when voters are turning to the Internet as a source
of information about election candidates and their positions. We are investigating
these reports.

We believe that people around the world should be able to use Facebook to
communicate and share information with their friends, family and coworkers. It is
always a shame when a countries' cultural and political concerns lead to limits
being placed on the opportunity for sharing and expression that the Internet
provides."

Angel investor Dale Okuno gave founders Kurt Daradics and Jason Kiesel an undisclosed sum in April 2009, and the company has already reported marked success with their first client, faith-based media conglomerate Salem Communications.

"FreedomSpeaks' commercial-use API allows organizations to white-label our service," said Daradics. "Talkpac.com is an example. They've sent over 100,000 letters this month in their radio tax campaign."

There are a few competitors in the space, such as CapitalAdvantage, which offers online advocacy to representatives and media, and Convio, a comprehensive advocacy system. From the user side, FreedomSpeaks differentiates itself by offering more access to representatives on the micro level.

"The main point that sets us apart is the breadth of our data set," said Keisel. "We go down to the county and city level. In addition, they do have a SaaS thing they offer. If I'm signed up with Convio and I put a link on my site to send a letter, the link goes to Convio. We allow an embed, which makes the whole process smoother for users and consolidates traffic for clients."

"We're also set up to integrate with social media," Keisel continued. "We currently have integration with Twitter and are working with Facebook, MySpace, and the other social networks. Complete integration will follow in the coming months."

Money and politics combine to form an issue no less confounding and controversial than that of monetization and startups.

Although user accounts are free, the site charges politicians a monthly fee to maintain a custom profile. Fees run along a sliding scale that ranges from $1,000 per month for federal politicians to $100 per month for city representatives. The site also uses display ads as a revenue stream and sells non-identifying demographic data to news organizations, research firms, and marketing agencies.

On May 1st South Carolina's Senator, Jim DeMint, officially asked the Senate Rules Committee to make the data available and just four days later the feed is here. Not everyone is happy about about the information being made publicly available like this, however.

John Wonderlich, policy director for the Sunlight Foundation, told Politico that the reason he's been given for the lack of XML feeds is this: "the secretary of the Senate has cited a general standing policy ... that they're not supposed to present votes in a comparative format, that senators have the right to present their votes however they want to...it's pretty bad."

Dave Lundy, acting executive director of the Chicago-based Better Government Association, told Politico again that: "It's a strategy to make information hard to find and hard to digest and hard to analyze...Call me a cynic, but I don't ... think [government entities] deserve the benefit of the doubt. We have ample experience to know that people try to hide information, even in plain sight."

Apparently, those problems were washed away this week by the tides of open technology. The Washington Post has offered something similar to what's now available for some time, but there's something to be said for what we hope will be a big, fat, official pipe of data.

We learned of the news this morning when New York Times technologist, Derek Willis, celebrated mention of the news by Rob Pierson, who yesterday began a new job leading new media initiatives for the House Democratic Caucus. The Sunlight Foundation said last week that neither the House nor the senate "maintain any reasonable database of lawmaker votes." The House of Representatives does release their votes in structured format, though.

Willis points out that the new Senate data feeds aren't perfect; the absence of Bioguide ID information linking Senators' names to their online profiles creates an unnecessary additional step for developers, for example.

It's exciting news none-the-less. "It's good to see high profile senators from both parties behind this," says John Musser, founder of the web's leading mashup and API directory, Programmable Web. "Those first steps are often the hardest. That is, just getting understanding of the value, getting buy-in and then having the data accessible in a developer friendly format. The next logical step is to wrap it in an API; having the XML is closer to having an RSS feed, there's not a lot of developer control of what data to retrieve. An API typically gives much more control over what data gets retrieved. Like 'give me all roll call votes for January 2009', versus 'here's the last 20 roll call votes.' Or all roll call votes by a specific senator, etc."

Musser says that he's seeing a broad movement towards increased access to government data. That work is being done by both official sources like this new Senate feed and the data-centric Recovery.org and by outside organizations like the Sunlight Foundation and the New York Times, work Musser is tracking closely.

What's left to open up? Check out, for example, this list of the 8 most desirable but unavailable government data sets, per Willis from the NYT. As of today, one of those can be checked off the list.

That's just what the nonprofit Sunlight Foundation is aiming to make more possible with its work to make government and related data more available with its new Apps for America contest. More than 40 open source applications and websites making use of that data entered the contest and today the six fabulous winners were announced. We've got a five minute screencast tour of the winners below.

Fillibusted - a site aiming to hold filibustering Congresspeople accountable for their actions.

Legistalker - a site that tracks news, Twitter, YouTube and other online activity by and about members of Congress.

HelloCongress - like Digg for Congressional priorities, with a twist.

Know Thy Congressman - a beautiful informational pop-up about Congresspeople that you can invoke anywhere you find their names on the web.

Yeas and Nays - a sophisticated Firefox plug-in that helps you click-to-call members of Congress.

E-Paper Trail - a data rich site to compare and learn about Congresspeople.

There are also a number of Honorable Mentions included on the Sunlight contest page.

Some of these look more useful than others so far but with a little extra support who knows? It's an increasingly data-driven world, but in order to truly get the most value out of that data the web needs interface and mashup developers. That's why it's such a great idea for Sunlight to support these and other developers the way they do.