policy - ReadWriteWeb http://www.readwriteweb.com/feeds/tag/policy en Copyright 2009 Richard MacManus readwriteweb@gmail.com Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=4.23-en http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss ShovelWatch Uses Crowdsourcing to Track the Stimulus Bill shoverwatch_logo_feb09.pngFew topics are galvanizing the American public right now like the stimulus bill and how the stimulus money will be spent. ShovelWatch is a joint project of not-for-profit news organization ProPublica, PRI's The Takeaway, and WNYC Radio that plans to track the "stimulus from bills to building." ShovelWatch currently aggregates the best stories about the stimulus bill from all three sites and will feature more original reporting from citizens in the future. The site also features some of the most informative infographics about the stimulus bill.

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Crowdsourcing

shovelwatch_screenshot.png Maybe the most interesting aspect of ShovelWatch, however, is that it plans to engage citizen reporters to track how the stimulus money will be spent in their local communities. Essentially, the site plans to crowdsource the coverage of the stimulus plan.

Besides its focus on content from The Takeaway, ProPublica, and WNYC, ShovelWatch also tracks stories about the Stimulus Bill on other news sites and features a nice list of resources in its sidebar.

With Recovery.gov, the government has obviously created its own site for tracking the stimulus bill, but Recovery.gov doesn't currently feature as much in-depth information as ShovelWatch (the 'announcements on the site haven't been updated since the middle of last week) and its focus is more on providing a high-level overview and not on tracking local developments.

]]>Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/shovelwatch_tracking_the_stimulus_bill.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/shovelwatch_tracking_the_stimulus_bill.php News Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:01:06 -0800 Frederic Lardinois Interview with Google Policy Analyst Derek Slater We interviewed Google's Derek Slater at the SanFran MusicTech Summit yesterday. Slater is a Policy Analyst at Google and in our interview he discusses net neutrality, copyright and other public policy issues Google deals with on a daily basis.

Derek Slater now runs public policy for Google, but before that he worked with the Berkman Center and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

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  • Google's philosophy that copyright is supposed to benefit the public.
  • Support for rights holders and ways to get them high Google rankings.
  • Google's history, starting in a garage and how their innovation thrived.
  • Copyright issues and Comcast.


An Interivew with Google Policy Analyst Derek Slater from alex williams on Vimeo.

]]>Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_public_policy_interview.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_public_policy_interview.php Interviews Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:40:19 -0800 Alex Williams