Transcript Government Web of the Future

RSS, Podcasts, and Vids, Oh, My!
Government Web Managers Conference
and Best Practice Awards
May 5-6, 2008
Jeffrey Levy
National Web Content Manager
Environmental Protection Agency
News feeds (aka RSS)
 Stands for “really simple syndication”
 That’s pretty meaningless
 Really means “put my headlines and
summaries on someone else’s Web page …
automatically”
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One way to “write once, publish many”
“News feed” is more common term
Uses an XML file with standard fields
Best produced by a database, but can
be done by hand
Government Web Managers Conference and Best Practice Awards
May 5-6, 2008
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News feeds (aka RSS) cont’d
 Great for regularly-updated material with a set
format
 News releases
 Program updates
 Recent additions / what’s new on the site
 Not so good for
 Constantly-changing layouts
 Infrequent announcements
 EPA’s news releases feeds
 http://www.epa.gov/newsroom/rssfeeds.htm
 MUCH easier to see than describe
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XML Source (tagged like HTML)
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News Feed in Action
EPA’s Web site
Government Web Managers Conference and Best Practice Awards
May 5-6, 2008
My iGoogle
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How to Find and Use Feeds
 Look for either of these icons
 Right-click to copy shortcut or link
 Paste into your news reader, My Yahoo,
iGoogle, etc.
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May 5-6, 2008
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How to Create Feeds
 Get a coder who knows XML
 Have her study other feeds
 Have her create a database to
automatically generate it
 Or manually create it (works for short term)
 Not worth site manager learning
technical details (in my opinion)
Government Web Managers Conference and Best Practice Awards
May 5-6, 2008
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What to Measure
 Not quite sure
 Feedburner, other services seem to offer
stats, but haven’t investigated
appropriate use yet
 Always need to check with legal before
using free services
Government Web Managers Conference and Best Practice Awards
May 5-6, 2008
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Podcasts
 Audio files that can be downloaded and
listened to on a computer or handheld player
 Various lengths: minutes to an hour
 Various sound, production quality
 Specifics depend on your capabilities and
commitment level
epa.gov/earthday/podcasts
Government Web Managers Conference and Best Practice Awards
May 5-6, 2008
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Podcasts cont’d
 Consistency is key for a given podcast series
 One theme
 Same speaker (or different every time)
 Same quality and length
 Like news feeds, best for recurring content (at
least weekly)
 Regular programming
 Weekly updates
 Time-limited but regular series of items
 Not so good for
 One-time recordings
 Set of recordings bearing no relation to each other
Government Web Managers Conference and Best Practice Awards
May 5-6, 2008
10
Podcasts and Subscriptions
 Make it subscribable by creating an XML file
 Instead of content being text, it’s a sound file
 People copy URL for XML file into sound manager
software (e.g., iTunes)
 Some argue podcasts must be subscribable or
they’re not “real” podcasts
 See “it’s not a blog if you can’t comment!” and similar
passionate arguments
 Subscriptions definitely increase traffic
 As with text, subscriptions help you create it
once and have multiple sites helping you get
your material out
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May 5-6, 2008
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iTunes
 iTunes is very well known
 Subscribing to iTunes is a bit of a
process, but worth it
 iTunes will pick up revised XML file
automatically
 Slightly different set of tags for iTunes
vs. other news readers, but can use one
XML file for both
 Again, have technical staff do it
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What to Measure
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Downloads
Appearances in Google search
Appearances in blogs
Compare to other outlets (e.g., fact
sheets)
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May 5-6, 2008
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Photo and Video Sharing
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Photos: Flickr, Shutterfly, Kodak, Others
Video: YouTube, Google, Others
Site owners create database
Members provide content
Community-building features
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Comments
Friends
Shared picture sets (called “pools” on Flickr)
Privacy controls
Categories, other forms of user-generated sorting
Discussion forums
Ratings (quality, G/PG/R/X, etc.)
Contests
 Issue for gov’t use: indemnification clauses
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Gov’t Example: Photo Contest
 EPA Earth Day Photo Contest
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http://www.epa.gov/earthday/photocontest
Three categories, each with a Flickr group
The public submitted photos
Categories received 200, 249, and 270 entries
EPA judges chose 10 finalists in each category
We created three new groups for the finalists
The public scored finalists by leaving
comments with 1-10 (10 being the highest)
We tallied the scores; highest average won in
each category
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Winner: Enjoying the Environment
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Winner: Protecting the Environment
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Winner: Nature and Wildlife
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Some Problems with Flickr
 For contest, many people created new
accounts
 Until Flickr reviews new accounts, photos
don’t show up
 Had to answer numerous emails about it
 Entrants use their user names
 Some didn’t check Flickr’s email system, so
we still don’t know their real names
 No automated scoring mechanism, so
had to tally by hand
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May 5-6, 2008
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EPA YouTube Channel
 Excited to start, but reality set in
 We have a channel: usaepagov
 Even before you start, grab your agency’s
name; epa and usepa were both taken
 Still working on strategy to “feed the
beast”
 Audience is surprisingly diverse in age, so not
necessarily aiming at young people
 Still want to have content typical to YouTube
 Video creation is complex
 Still thinking, leading interagency group
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NOAA’s Ocean Explorer Channel
 NOAA Ocean Explorer
http://youtube.com/oceanexplorergov
 They’re producing video anyway, besides for
YouTube
 Interesting to public
 Tight linkage to normal Web site
 On channel home page
 Within each video’s text description
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Interagency Web Manager Group
 Exploring guidelines
 Working with YouTube on legal issues
like indemnification
 Researching channel look and feel
options (YouTube normally charges huge
sums for customizable design)
 Contact Kay Morrison
 202-564-7821
 [email protected]
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May 5-6, 2008
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