Tim Ryan Launches First House Social Network for Constituents?

Congressmen Tim Ryan (D-OH) launched his own custom social network yesterday, using the Ning platform.  In and of itself, this isn’t particularly notable.  Lots of politicians have launched their own Ning networks.  However, in every case I know of the focus of the socnet has been on winning elections,...

The Problem with Retweets

As most probably know, Twitter is in the process of launching a version of the widely used retweet on its own platform.  The move has caused some controversy, as the way retweets has been implemented by Twitter is much different from the unofficial protocols that Twitter users developed organically on their own. ...

The CIO and Journalism

In the past we have profiled the innovative work of people like Adrian Holovaty who does some exciting things through programming that allow data to tell their own stories.  For instance, he set up the Campaign Tracker for the Washington Post, and he is now running his own site Everyblock – the database driven hyperlocal news site. ...

Medical Openness in Social Media

As social networking sites and technologies have flourished over the last few years, there has been much discussion about privacy today.  It is not that uncommon for people to provide updates about their personal lives on their Facebook accounts or Twitter feeds.  They talk about if they are sick, have a crush on somebody,...

Web Collaboration Requires Trust and Surprise

I attended the O’Reilly Gov 2.0 Summit today and enjoyed listening to many of the insightful speakers.  One of them was Clay Shirky; who is popular on the tech conference circuit.

He talked about how organizations have tried to harness their community members to use the data and services that they provide turning them to them to the public to develop applications and new uses for their services. ...