All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
It's good for governments to find more ways to connect with their citizens, including the web. As the web goes mobile, open government should too. But governments shouldn't develop apps for some mobile platforms and not others.
That's Kevin Curry and Brownell Chalstrom's problem with Texas.gov's new iPhone app. The state of Texas recently overhauled its website for the desktop, but doesn't have a mobile version. It also doesn't have applications for Android, Blackberry or any other mobile platform.
This heated up discussion at the recent Govfresh Gov 2.0 conference in Manor, Texas. Curry, founder of the open government unconference City Camp, said that by limiting access to one platform and one device -- and an expensive device, at that -- Texas is empowering the already empowered, rather than broadening access for everyone.
Given the potential use cases and the sheer number of citizens whose only net-capable devices are mobile phones, mobile access to government data is definitely important. The trouble is when governments pick winners and losers, developing a presence on iPhone but not Android, or Facebook but not MySpace.
It's not only the numbers of iPhone or Facebook users that attract governments. It's the prestige. According to O'Reilly Radar's government 2.0 reporter Alex Howard, "government technology shops, judging by their output, have become afflicted with a kind of 'shiny app syndrome,' given that an app is a substantive accomplishment that can be trotted out for officials and the public."
Brownell Chalstrom, a Manor Govfresh delegate, says that governments looking to develop for mobile should first look to create open websites using rich web standards like HTML5 and CSS3, and only then look to develop applications for platforms limited to users of an individual device or service. Open standards for open government, if you will.
"The goals that public officials pursue when they create new .gov websites or applications should be based upon civic good," Howard writes. "If that civic good is to be rendered to a population increasingly connected to one another through smartphones, tablets and cellphones, truly open governments will employ methods that provide access to all citizens, not just the privileged few."
"Shiny app syndrome" and Gov 2.0 [O'Reilly Radar]
See Also:
