As Municipalist hunts away for examples of decent government-based blogs focusing on the Southern California wildfires, he realizes this: It is a Web 1.0 world out there still for most of these sites. Good local government blogs and sites that push engagement and interactivity are rare. Many of these sites work hard to provide plenty of information. But they are clunky, poorly designed, and too often they ignore including basic tools to encourage participation and information sharing from users. One example is the San Diego County Emergency Homepage, where a decent effort has been made to update citizens on evacuations, etc., but the whole thing seems stuck in some late '90s context. Meaning: Lots of stuff to click to and read. Stacks of PDF files and Word (!) documents that can be printed out.
But are there any places where readers themselves can contribute and share information, or have discussions, or have their questions answered by experts? Nope.
A section called "Breaking News Briefs" is slightly like a blog, but posts are not detailed enough. And no comments. And no way to search, say, for info on my town or neighborhood or address. Google Maps are made use of, and that is a great idea. But the best sites across the Web of today are figuring out how to tap into the knowledge of users. The efforts of many countless municipal, state, and federal employees in Southern California have been heroic, no doubt. But this site fails to get the job done.
Similarly, the site of San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders is packed with plenty of PDF files to download. Get a blog, Jerry. It's a great way to build a dialogue with your city.
Municipalist is confident that good government blogs are out there focusing on the fire. The hunt continues.
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Nov. 2, 2007 UPDATE: The blog at New Communications Review reports that social networking sites were all over the California wildfires:
The Los Angeles Fire Department posted frequent updates and information like tips for donating to the fire victims on Twitter. More than 800 photos of the wildfires are available to view on Flickr.com, and San Diego’s TV station News 8 replaced its original site with a rolling news blog linking to YouTube videos of its key reports and Google Maps
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