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Government sociability.

Article Excerpt
Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are evolving well beyond the teen and college circles that gave them their start. More adults are using the sites and so are more institutions. Libraries have been participating in the social networking space for some time. Businesses (both as advertisers and as participants) are actively using these sites and measuring their potential. Now the U.S. government is testing its role in the online networking world. USA.gov, the federal government's official web portal, has a Facebook profile [http://www.facebook.com/pages/USAgov-the-US-governments-officialwebportal/ 9452487181]. GobiernoUSA.gov, USA.gov's companion site for the Spanish-speaking community, is also on Facebook [http://www.facebook.com/pages/Washington-DC/ GobiernoUSAgovtheofficial-portal-of-the-US-Government-in-Spanish/9946242482]. The State Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs are on Facebook, as are the state governments of California, South Carolina, and Rhode Island.

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Why would government entities establish a presence on a site such as Facebook, which is clearly designed for individuals? For the same reasons libraries, businesses, nonprofit groups, and others are doing it: That is where clients, customers, partners--and citizens--congregate. Traditional government webpages provide information and services; so do government Facebook profiles. As USA.gov director Bev Godwin puts it, "We're taking our product and moving it to where the people are."

The General Service Administration (GSA) Office of Citizen Services and Communications, where USA.gov resides, has engaged the Captura Group of San Diego, Calif., to help develop its social media strategy. GSA is exploring a wide variety of social media. It already has a blog, GovGab [http://www.govgab.gov]; maintains a weekday chat service [http://answers.usa.gov]; and has Twitter feeds for USA.gov [http://www.twitter.com/usagov], GobiernoUSA [http://twitter.com/Gobierno USA], and the Federal Citizen Information Center at Pueblo, Colo. [http://twitter.com/pueblo81009]. All of these channels are set up to provide the information citizens require from their government, particularly about services and benefits, such as passports, unemployment insurance, small business loans, product safety news, government auctions, and housing assistance. The GSA Office of Citizen Services' webpage states that the office provides "American citizens access to information and services they require from their government in whatever medium they prefer--the internet, email, telephone, fax, or print." These days, to be accurate, one...

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