Entry bubble Government 2.0

By: Jess | May 21, 2009 | Category: Fun

It wasn't too long ago that I told you about some of the cool things we were experimenting with using social media such as RSS feeds and Twitter to help bring you government information where you want to get it. (If you missed the earlier post, you can find us here: Twitter.com/pueblo81009, Twitter.com/usagov, Twitter.com/gobiernousa.)

More recently we've created Facebook pages where you can find USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov as well as consumer information from the Federal Citizen Information Center. Our goal is to help you find the government information you need in places you normally spend time online. If Facebook is one of those places and you like getting information from your news feed, becoming fans of our pages will deliver daily doses of information right into that feed. I encourage you to comment on our postings, tell us what you like or don't like and feel free to ask questions.

Our newest expansion into the social media world is the brand-spanking new U.S. Government YouTube channel. The channel is a portal to videos from all of the federal agencies posting videos to YouTube. You'll find messages from officials, how-to videos about applying for Social Security benefits, NASA videos of astronauts in space and more from tons of other agencies. If you've got a minute, I encourage you to go check it out!

My question to you about social media is how much do you use it and do you like interacting with the government and getting government information through these channels? 

| View Comments [4] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: facebook   jess   social_media   twitter   youtube  

 

Entry bubble Where to find us on the social Web

By: Jess | March 05, 2009 | Category: Fun

Man on computer

Back in October Joanne wrote about how the government was making inroads using social media tools to reach larger audiences. In four short months, USA.gov, GobiernoUSA.gov and Pueblo.gsa.gov, as well as many other government agencies, have made a lot of progress on the social media front.

If Twitter is your scene you can follow all three. GovGab also has a Twitter feed if you prefer getting updates on our recent posts that way. Feel free to reach out to us on Twitter as well. If you post a question to the Pueblo feed, I'm the person who will Tweet the information back to you. We also use our Twitter feeds to share all kinds of interesting government information like recall alerts or the latest on what President Obama is up to.

We also offer e-mail alerts, RSS feeds and widgets if you want to centralize all the information we provide in one place on your computer. I encourage you to check us out on which ever social media platform you prefer. If you're not currently using any form of social media, why not pick one and give it a try? It's a great chance to learn valuable information in a new a way.

If you have questions on how to get started with social media or where to find us, feel free to leave me a comment and I'll try my best to help you out.

| View Comments [6] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: facebook   government   government_2.0   jess   pueblo.gsa.gov   rss_feeds   social_media   twitter   usa.gov   web_2.0  

 

Entry bubble Celebrate the Inauguration with Us

By: Editor | January 16, 2009 | Category: Fun

William McKinley's inauguration in 1901, courtesy of the U.S. <a href=Library of Congress" src="http://blog.usa.gov/roller/govgab/resource/images/McKinley%20inauguration.jpg" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px;" />

When you live here in Washington, it’s hard not to be aware of the historic events we’ll host next week. For weeks, everyone’s been speculating about how many people will converge on the nation’s capital to witness Barack Obama’s inauguration. I don’t know that I trust any of the predictions, but I do know that for every person who comes, thousands more will be participating from home in spirit.

For all of you who will be following the festivities remotely, Gov Gab is offering you a special treat. We’ve been lucky enough to get press passes to four official Inaugural events, and we’re going to bring you a citizen’s eye view of all the action! With help from our colleagues at USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov, we’ll be using Twitter and this blog to share stories, real-time updates, photos, and more. We’re pretty excited, not only to attend these events, but also to be the first government agency to use social media tools to give citizens a behind-the-scenes look at these special parts of our national life.

Here’s a rundown of the events we plan to cover:

But before the excitement begins, we have a pressing question. What do you want to know about these events? What would you like us to cover? The performers, the venues, the attendees? Just our personal experiences? We’ll do our best to bring you as much of the information you’d like as possible—just please remember that we’re still experimenting with all the tools we’ll be using. Hey, if you have suggestions for how to make our coverage better, please tell us that, too!

| View Comments [7] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: editor   festivities   inauguration   social_media  

 

Entry bubble GovGab Birthday Week!

By: Jake | September 22, 2008 | Category: Fun

Happy Birthday to us! Happy Birthday to us! Happy Birthday dear us! Happy Birthday to us!

Baby JakeGov Gab is now a Year Old. Technically today is not Gov Gab's first birthday (it was Saturday), but we decided to make our first b-day a week-long event. Each Govgabber will talk about what was going down in the U.S. when he or she turned the big numero uno. As you can see from the adorable whippersnapper on the swing (aka me), we're also including pics of ourselves circa 12 months. We've also released a Gov Gab's First Birthday Social Media Release, which we think is the first U.S. government example of a social media release.

Even though I was just swinging around, 1980 was a busssssy year. There was a United States presidential election, Olympics and the U.S. Census Bureau did its thing (conducted a census). Mother Nature showed her fury with the Mount St. Helens explosion and a major heat wave.

Ordinary People won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Robert De Niro won Best Actor for playing a Raging Bull named Jake (no relation). Of course Star Wars fans know 1980 as the year that Luke learned who his father was. Music lost icons John Lennon and John Bonham and was well on its way to becoming 80's music with releases by the Talking Heads, U2 and (sigh) Loverboy.

I think the most notable occurrence in 1980 that relates to Gov Gab was the passing of Canadian communications theorist Marshall McLuhan. McLuhan was best known for the phrase "the medium is the message" but he also wrote extensively about the term "global village," which today is synonymous with the Internet.

McLuhan's interpretation of the global village was negative, but he never lived to see the Internet. It's no secret that the Internet has changed our lives. From paying bills or even finding a date, you can do just about anything on the web (even conduct government transactions!).

So how do you think the global village has changed your life? Also, feel free to suggest on any post this week what we can do here at Gov Gab to improve as we work toward our terrible twos.

| View Comments [10] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: 1980   1980's   birthday   global_village   govgab_birthday   jake   social_media   social_media_release