Lesley Anderson

Research and evaluation in Government 2.0

1. Summarise the use of

• 1. Wiki drafts of papers for public discussion and
• 2. Twitter in Government.

Wikis appear to be a favoured way of creating some documents where public discussion is to be included. On the Public Sphere2  site. http://wiki.katelundy.com.au/PublicSphere2 an outline is given of the steps that were undertaken to create a collaborative document on - Government 2.0: Policy and Practice - which would ultimately be given to the Gov2.0 taskforce when it was completed.  Use of a wiki was central to this process, enabling people from throughout the Australian general public to have their say about the topic by adding to the wiki file.  This has also been the process for Public Sphere3 and other Government bodies are embracing the idea of public forum set up in this way with a view to decision making being collaborative with and transparent to the general public.

Twitter also seems to be gathering momentum for use in such forums. Both the Public Sphere reports mentioned above and passed on the Gov2.0 taskforce included documentation of twitter feeds in which members of the government and public added comments and information to the discussion taking place. On all the Gov2.0 sites are icons for twitter encouraging people to follow the government on it. Read the rest of this entry »

Is social networking a business model?

What are the arguments for and against social networking being classified as a business model?

There is certainly a lot of talk on the web about business models and whether social networking sites could be classified as having one. Firstly, tracking down a definition of a business model that I could understand - as a non-business person was challenging. I finally got some satisfaction with this definition. A business model is -
“A description of the operations of a business including the components of the business, the functions of the business, and the revenues and expenses that the business generates. ” http://www.investorwords.com/629/business_model.html

It seems that a business model is generally about how a business will generate revenue to sustain itself and satisfy anyone who has financial interests in it - monetization. Some models and the problems they may face with regard to social networking follow in the table below. Read the rest of this entry »