New Media Talks: How Government Becomes a Platform

From WebContent.gov…

Presenter: Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media

Webinar Description:
Why have 40,000 applications been developed for the Apple iPhone by independent developers while other phones have to develop their own applications? Why are there thousands of mashups for Google Maps, but only hundreds for any other web mapping platform? Why are there hundreds of third party applications for Twitter? Becoming a platform that enables the success of others is the secret sauce of Silicon Valley success.

This talk addresses the question: how does government itself become an open platform that allows people inside and outside government to innovate? How do you design a system in which all of the outcomes aren’t specified beforehand, but instead evolve through interactions between the technology provider and its user community? How can open data, broadband stimulus, and other government technology initiatives spark innovation? How can we create web applications that become ever more useful through a virtuous circle of contributions from their users? More…