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TechPresident points to and interesting article today from the Yale Journal of Law & Technology (draft version of article set to appear in 2008-2009 Fall Issue) that proposes a new form of open government that encourages the closure of government web sites. The idea is that US government web sites are so notoriously bad, they should just be torn down in favor of private sector alternatives. But this is more than just a privatization push, this is about turning the government into a data platform.

Gartner recently released a couple of reports on how web 2.0 technologies are being used in e-Government. The reports are entitled The E-Government Hype Cycle Meets Web 2.0 and Government and Web 2.0: The Emerging Midoffice. Both are about how modern e-government efforts are moving away from the 'one stop shop' portal approach that characterized early efforts, and are turning more towards mashups and (to quote the first Gartner report) "a number of mostly adventurous initiatives with blogs, wikis or islands in Second Life." But it's the ecosystem of Web Services - and the reusability of content and services that Web Services enable - that really excites Gartner about web 2.0 in e-government.

Control

The 'Hype Cycle' Gartner report makes it plain that Gartner analysts do not consider all aspects of Web 2.0 to be useful in e-government. Wikis, Ajax, virtual worlds and blogs require "control" if used in an e-government context, according to this passage:

"Actions such as jumping on the wiki bandwagon, leveraging technologies such as Ajax for richer user interfaces or diving into virtual worlds to entice the so-called "digital natives" will result in a sudden awakening for governments. We expect several governments in developed economies to establish virtual government strategies that define how to participate in a variety of virtual communities, ranging from internal ones that engage employees, to external ones where they will reach out to constituents.

Such efforts will provide value only if they are very well-focused and conducted — at least initially — in the context of gated communities where governments can exercise some degree of control."

Don't all IT projects require focus? Admittedly though, for government business it is important to have strict security, ID, accountability and compliance functionality in place. These things have presented challenges for quite some time in regards to wikis and blog. However, products like Atlassian - which recently partnered with Microsoft to integrate with SharePoint - have more than enough 'control' to satisfy most government departments.