Open Government Links of the Past Week – April 15, 2011

CA cities having hard time dealing w/ FOIA requests.

• “Now, IT officials working in California cities are saying that they are overwhelmed by the complexity of the public archived information being sought.”
• “Although responding to record requests has traditionally been a function of a city clerk’s office, in recent years IT departments have become heavily involved in the process as federal and state laws have included electronic documents under the public records umbrella.”
• Article: “Transparency Bill Ups E-Discovery Pressure on California Cities” (GovTech.com, HT)

“comScore Releases March 2011 U.S. Online Video Rankings”

• “comScore, Inc. … released data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that 174 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in March for an average of 14.8 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 5.7 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month.”
• More stats in the press release…

“Mobile Decisions | To App or Not to App, That is the Question“

• “as mobile development in the federal government continues to ramp up, tools to help agencies and individuals assess how (and when) to intelligently proceed are increasingly important. Recognizing that every situation is unique, an understanding of a few critical questions should provide some clarity for those making the decision on how best to proceed with mobile development.”

Sunshine Review’s Post: “Open government and data resources“

• “Through FOIAchat, a weekly live chat Sunshine Review hosts on Twitter, we’ve run into a lot of really great resources for those of you hoping to learn more about your government. Usually, it takes some investigation to get data and documents from governments, but these resources host searchable information online for you to utilize.”

How can social media help government reach Hispanics (a growing population)?

• The U.S. Hispanic population is on the rise. How can Gov 2.0 help local governments serve this population of citizens?

So there you have it! Any more ideas? Let me know in the comments!

A similar version of this was originally posted at the company that I work for’s product blog (Disclosure: the product deals w/ transparency, gov’t, & technology)