Just another example of making information more adaptive and recombinant:
Welcome to FedThread.org
FedThread is a new way of interacting with the Federal Register. FedThread gives you:
- collaborative annotation: Attach a note to any paragraph of the Federal Register; start a conversation.
- advanced search: Search the Federal Register (back to 2000) on full text, by date, agency, and other fields.
- customized feeds: Turn any search into an RSS or email feed, which will send you any new items that match the search query.
The Federal Register is "[t]he official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of Federal agencies and organizations, as well as executive orders and other presidential documents." It's published by the U.S. government, five days a week. The Federal Register tells you what your government is doing, in a lot more detail than you get from the news media.
FedThread is possible because of the government's new XML-format Federal Register, a milestone in technology-based civic engagement that lets citizens create new services that in turn provide value back to government. Kudos to the Government Printing Office, National Archives and Records Administration, and Office of Science and Technology Policy for making this all possible.
Federal Register 2.0: Opening a Window onto the Inner Workings of Government
That’s why we're pleased to announce that as of today the National Archives and Records Administration and the U.S. Government Printing Office will publish the Federal Register in "XML." XML is a simple and flexible, machine-readable form of text that is easy to manipulate with software. By putting the Federal Register in XML, the federal government is for the first time allowing individuals to take control over how they want to read the Federal Register.
With an XML edition, independent organizations can reorganize the Register’s contents in ways that are more meaningful to you and address your personal interests; track issues that are likely to affect your community or your profession; and even engage in real-time public discussions about its contents with others across the country and around the world.
For example, Princeton's Center for Information Technology is today set to launch Fedthread.org, which allows users to annotate the Federal Register and comment in its margins. Another organization, Public.Resource.org, has created a software application that makes it simpler to search the Federal Register. And GovPulse makes it possible to visualize the Federal Register by topic or by location so the reader can see how particular government actions affect different local communities.
Comments