Google Aims at More Transparency with Election Site ... Sunlight Foundation Tie would Make Even More Compelling

Google launched a new site to follow the 2007 Australian Federal Election, reports TechCrunch. It allows users to track news for specific members of the house of representatives as well as an easy search of the parliamentary record to track what officials have said and where they stand. There is also a nice mash up of You Tube.

I can't imagine this is far from coming the the States. At least I hope so. I, and surely others, are tired of navigating through the maze of horse race politics, and campaign rhetoric to find who the best candidates are. I don't have time to closely follow politics, but I would use a site that put the information I want right at my fingertips.

What would be even more compelling is for Google to open this site up so the likes of the Sunlight Foundation who could incorporate some of the public policy projects they've developed to bring more transparency and accountability to government.

Take Visualizing Earmarks, which graphs how money is earmarked for States and organizations.

Or Louis, whose goal it is to is "to create a comprehensive, completely indexed and cross-referenced depository of federal documents from the executive and legislative branches of government."

Or OpenHouse, a project aimed at "easy ways to begin the process of more effectively using technology to further transparency."

Or OpenCongress, which tracks the background behind each bill.

Check out Sunlight for other great projects.

Obviously, Google and Sunlight could create a powerful way for citizens to easily get smart on candidates to make better informed decisions.

Doc Searls has a new blog covering his efforts in VRM ... check it out.

Laurence Hooper, a very talented director of products who was at AOL, is blogging. As customary for bloggers, he takes a stab a defining Web 2.0. He nails it:

If [the] primary value to a user depends on the participation of other users, it's Web 2.0.

That's the most succinct definition of web 2.0 I've seen.

Really Stopping Global Warming

To me, there is no other issue as important as global warming. While terrorism, education and healthcare loom, nothing is as important to humankind's survival as reducing greenhouse emissions. The Washington Post is issuing a series covering the subject, and is by far the most informative and actionable piece I've seen on the subject. This issue will require a global effort and leadership by the United States on a scale greater than has every been accomplished.

Today's articles are fantastic and includes tangible steps on what it will take to halt global warming. There is also a nice overview of the pieces of legislation under consideration that would require reductions in greenhouse commission. And of course there is a financial cost to all of this, which is all worth it. Track the series here, along with some nice interactive maps further articulating what it will take.

Checking in

Since I obviously haven't kept my word at staying at this regularly, I started a Tumblelog here. I still plan on getting this blog going again, so swing by now and then.

WebSense Blog Relaunching as "neXtknode"

It's been far too long since I've posted on this blog. I took a deliberate break over a year and a half ago because of a number of amazing things happening in my personal life and a lack of clarity on what I wanted to blog about. I suppose I didn't find it worth it to figure it out.

But I started getting the itch again. One of the primary reasons I started blogging was to challenge the conventional wisdom at the time around advertising, marketing, media and business, and to contribute to the growing dialogue about the shift from traditional media to distributed media. It would be too simple to call this Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0. It goes beyond what Web 2.0 stands for today. Regardless, the shift started happening in a meaningful way.

That brings us to today. Web 2.0 wasn't even a phrase when I started blogging in 2001. Today its thrown around widely and has many meanings. Whereas my WebSense blog stood for what made common sense on the Web, neXtknode will stand for much of what is next on the web. Some topics I want to cover:

• Transparency
  
• Distributed Media
• Attention
• New advertising models (like VRM)
• Journalism
• Politics and distributed citizens
• Social Search
• Distributed Social Networking
• Collaborative technologies
• Web Services
  

And in case you were wondering, neXtknode = what's next + Knowles + node. The domain will remain websense.blogspot.com (only because Blogger doesn't let you change domains for blogspot plus domains - a big pain - or transfer posts to a new blog).

BTW, this is a "soft" launch. Expect many more cosmetic changes and tweaks over the next few weeks including an update to my blogroll. My goal is to blog a couple times a week, although if I can get in a few quick link posts, you can expect them more often. I'm also going to be getting rid of comments until I can figure out how to ditch all of the comment spam I've received over the past year and a half.