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It's still unclear to me whether a national version of Fuelwatch will be launched due to the political discussions underway (the WA version is at www.fuelwatch.com.au), however a US site named Fuelly has turned the concept on its head to create a useful user-centric site, which would lend itself effectively to extending a Fuelwatch-style approach.
Fuelly, at www.fuelly.com, allows individuals to record their vehicles, fuel use and the prices they paid for fuel to track their car's performance over time.
It is a simple concept which lends itself well to tracking the price of fuel at outlets (just add the service station details and time/date of purchases when people record fuel usage) without the need for expensive monitoring by a central agency or by petrol stations themselves. The site's users will do the work, because they receive a pay-off - precise information on their vehicle's fuel performance over time, which can be compared against the baseline for the vehicle (or compare against aggregate results from others with the same model car).
This type of application works well in the Web 2.0 world. Known as crowdsourcing it involves getting a large number of individuals to each do a small amount of work for an individual payback. As the service grows, so does the payback - encouraging greater participation.
Through having a very large number of participants any inconsistencies get smoothed out - as Wikipedia has demonstrated through its ability to rapidly self-correct when errors arise, (much faster than Encyclopedia Britannica, which has to wait until the next year's edition).
The approach Fuelly takes could easily be extended to include more car-related features - oil changes, services and major overhauls, and could eventually link into insurance programs as a way for individuals to record their car-related activities over time. The concept could continue to expand into other areas of value to people, mash-up with maps (If I drive from Canberra to Sydney, given my car's performance level, how much fuel will I use and what will it cost me), to other types of vehicles and to overall energy use and carbon footprint (just add your electricity, gas and water bill totals). It could then self-fund through advertising and car-related services.
With that type of site you'd add a vast amount of utility to a simple fuelwatch, making it very sticky, useful for people and self-regulating and maintaining.
Of course, being an entrepreneur by background I think towards how to make such a development sufficiently useful to generate a profit.
In the government sector, with the profit motive absent, this might seem all too commercial, though it provides a positive driver to make the service more useful to people, as if it didn't get used, it wouldn't get funded.
Note that this isn't the only crowdsourcing idea that could work in government. Provided that government can identify appropriate opportunities, provide a robust technical framework, fund initial growth and promotion, many concepts would lend themselves to the approach.
After all, the crowdsourcing approach is about putting in place infrastructure usable for the public good, and that's really what governments are about!
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Extending the appeal of fuelwatch - making it 'you'-centrinc | Tweet |
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
What's the legal liability in (hyper) linking? | Tweet |
The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in the US is investigating the legalities of website linking, putting forward a policy proposal stating that companies should be held liable for linking to other sites containing information related to their share value.
Basically, if a link from a company's website pointed to false or misleading information about the company's prospects, it could be held responsible (under the proposed policy), leading to a fine or more severe action.
Why is this important in Australia?
Because it could be the thin edge of the wedge for linking. If a company cannot link to certain sites for fear of share information related liability (such as a public forum where opinions are aired, or a media publication which accidentally gets a story about the company wrong), it's not too many more steps to a situation where any hyperlinking may contain a legal risk.
If there was a risk for companies, there would also be a risk for government. What if that family-friendly site your agency linked to (even with a warning interstitial) was bought out by an adult products company, who promptly repointed it to one of their adult shops?
Would the agency linking to it become liable for the link? Or would extra legalese be required to discourage anyone going from one site to another, just in case.
This would make one of the fundamental foundations of the internet - linking - a very risky business.
Reported in WebProNews in the article, SEC Looks Into Hyperlink Liability, the SEC's approach does take into account the situation described above - where a clear warning exists, or the intention was not to cause offense or harm, so it's not really the thin edge of that wedge after all.
However I can see greater probity on linking leading to the kind of situation I described above - on the basis that by walling in the garden the customer is protected from 'bad' influences. It was the business model used with considerable success for a number of years by AOL.
Can you see a time coming where linking to other websites (other than trusted .gov.au sites) becomes too risky for your organisation to chance legally?
Is this a real option or should it be considered alongside foil hats?
Safeguarding egovernment networks - what if you had over 1,000 unauthorised web servers connected to your network? | Tweet |
I'd feel concerned if I was the CIO of a government agency that found it had over 1,000 unauthorised web servers connected to its network.
This is the position the US's Internal Revenue Service is in at the moment, having identified 1,150 unauthorised web servers connected to its network .
As the servers are unauthorised, they are not regularly security patched, making them potential intrusion points for hackers.
As reported in Nextgov, in the article, IRS finds unauthorized Web servers connected to its networks, the IRS is now in the process of creating policies and procedures to prevent the unauthorised servers from accessing IRS data and will be undertaking quarterly reviews to measure compliance with security standards.
Monday, September 08, 2008
Facebook for US intelligence forces launching this month - time to revisit a whole-of-government intranet? | Tweet |
A-Space, an online collaborative space for US intelligence operatives, is planned for launch this month, giving all 16 US intelligence agencies a streamlined and effective tool for sharing information and collaborating - activities that have been criticised as previously lacking across US intelligence initiatives.
As reported in FCW.com, in the article, A-Space set to launch this month, after logging in,analysts will have access to shared and personal workspaces, wikis, blogs, widgets, RSS feeds and other tools. To log in, analysts will need to prove their identity using public key infrastructure, and their agencies must list them in the governmentwide intelligence analyst directory.
Like many social-networking sites, each analyst will create an online personal profile, and colleagues can see what others are working on and the A-Space workspaces that they are using. In addition, much like Facebook, users can also post notes on one another’s profiles
The A-Space social network will include a search tool and data sets from six agencies at launch, with more to be progressively added.
We've seen several other western jurisdictions introduce cross-agency or whole-of-government intranets (such as Singapore), and there was a commitment made in Australia to establish a whole-of-government intranet by the end of 1998, which never came to fruition.
Perhaps it is time to revisit this.
Getting the basics right - US presidential hopefuls fail website navigation | Tweet |
Forrester Research has released a report critiquing the navigation of the websites of John McCain and Barack Obama, claiming that both fail basic navigation tests by potential voters.
Nextgov reported in the article, Web sites of both presidential candidates fail to connect with users, that,Forrester used five criteria in its evaluation: clear labels and menus; legible text; easy-to-read format; priority of content on the homepage; and accessible privacy and security policies. McCain's site passed two of those benchmarks: clear and unique category names and legible text. Obama's site succeeded in one area: straightforward layout making it easy to scan content on the homepage.
This came on the back of another report by Catalyst, which tested seven criteria. The Nextgov article quotes that,
Neither site gave priority to the most important information on the homepage, or posted clear privacy and security policies, Forrester concluded.Catalyst asked individuals to perform seven tasks while evaluating each campaign site, including donating money, reading the candidates' biographies and finding their positions on specific policy issues. Obama's site stood out for its design and navigation, but users were confused about certain labels on the homepage, such as "Learn," which contained links to information about the Illinois senator's background and policy positions.
What were the lessons for all government sites?
