RT @Twitter: Tweet with #BPspillmap to report an incident to the Louisiana Bucket Brigade or check out reports so far on this map: http://bit.ly/aeQb0Y

Twitter announced yesterday on it’s official Twitter account the integration of Twitter and the Louisiana Bucket Brigade.  The Louisiana Bucket Brigade is a system created by students to allow everyday citizens to report oil in places they frequent, because of the Gulf Shore oil leak.

What is the Oil Spill Crisis Map?

This map visualizes reports of the effects of the BP oil spill submitted via text message, email, twitter and the web. Reports of oil sightings, affected animals, odors, health effects and human factor impacts made by the eyewitnesses and the media populate points on a this public, interactive, web based map. The information will be used to provide data about the impacts of the spill in real time as well as document the story of those that witness it.

Who made this?

The Oil Spill Crisis map is brought to you by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade and was developed in partnership with students of Professor Nathan Morrow of Tulane University. This technology, utilizes the Ushahidi (http://ushahidi.org) crisis mapping platform to map eyewitness accounts of the oil spill disaster. Ushahidi was first used and developed by Kenyan bloggers to display reports of post-election violence. Since then Ushahidi has been used in other emergencies like the Haiti Earthquake (http://haiti.ushahidi.com/) response, Washington DC’s winter blizzard (http://snowmageddoncleanup.com/) and in Atlanta (http://crime.mapatl.com/) to track crime. The Oil Spill Crisis map is first application of Ushahidi in a humanitarian response in the United States.

These results should not imply that Americans are not involved in online discussions around government issues or policies—these conversations are simply taking place within the broader online environment rather than on “official” government blogs or fan pages. In the twelve months preceding this survey, one in ten internet users (11%) posted comments, queries or other information related to government poli- cies online, while 7% of internet users uploaded videos or photos online related to a government policy or issue. An additional 12% of internet users joined a group online that tries to influence government policies, and 3% participated in an online town hall meeting. Taking all of these activities together, nearly one quarter of internet users (23%) have posted comments or interacted with others online around government policies or public issues.

Another area I thought interesting was the discussion of minority usage of online government interactions:

The report also finds that 31% of online adults have used social tools such as blogs, social networking sites, and online video as well as email and text alerts to keep informed about government activities. Moreover, these new tools show particular appeal to groups that have historically lagged in their use of other online government offerings—in particular, minority Americans. Latinos and African Americans are just as likely as whites to use these tools to keep up with government, and are much more likely to agree that government outreach using these channels makes government more accessible and helps people be more informed about what government agencies are doing.

This is a rather long report, but I recommend you read it (here’s the pdf), but in case you don’t, I will likely post more information as I digest it all.  And, the O’Reilly Radar has a good overview also.

Our friends at SeeClickFix run a site where you can report non-emergency community issues, like potholes, graffiti or street light outages. They’ve shared their data with us so that EveryBlock users will get notified whenever an issue has been reported nearby.

See the great coverage in ReadWriteWeb:

Everyblock aggregates public records, blog posts and other content about very specific geographic locations, automatically. SeeClickFix acts on a similarly hyperlocal basis, giving its users the ability to report issues to their local government using their smartphone.

“Surprise is city of connection and opportunity, and our new streamlined directory makes it easy for our residents to connect with the right person in city government,” says Interim City Manager Mark Coronado. “We continue to drive Mayor and Council’s goal of constantly improving our open and transparent relationship with residents.”

The new City Directory, which includes staff contact information and numbers to local utilities, is among many new improvements to the web site, all designed to improve connections to government information. Other recent additions include a Google site search and the “It’s Your Money” city finance site. The city’s commitment to openness was recently recognized by Sunshine Review with a perfect score for the openness and transparency of surprise.gov.

Check out their Connect/Contact page here.

Gov. Pawlenty saw his Facebook fan numbers surge to over 35,000 from around 31,000 in the days before the event, a campaign spokesman told OhMyGov.

During the 2 days last week when Pawlenty was promoting the town hall, he received 1,039 “likes” on posts related to the event and 527 comments, for a total of 1,566 citizen “touches.” Not all were unique, to be sure, but it’s a nice base of activity that, remember, gets broadcast to all of his fans’ friends too. The town hall had over 1,000 confirmed guests.

Over 1,000 confirmed guests is pretty incredible.  And what about the town hall itself?

The range of questions posted on his Facebook page ran the gamut from sensible to downright strange. One participant offered this suggestion and question on how to solve Minnesota’s budget problems: “Two large oil fields have been discovered in North Dakota and Montana – how can Minnesota profit from oil in North Dakota?” We assume that T-Paw, as he likes to be called, took a pass on that one.

Overall, the post-town hall meeting comments on the Governor’s Facebook page were overwhelmingly positive. From Roberta Folino: “very good town hall meeting and I actually had my question answered,” and from Patty Rosehill: “good beginning – looking forward to more of these town hall meetings.” Of course, keeping a positive spin on developments is made easier on Facebook since only “fans” can comment on your page.

What an accomplishment.  Governor Pawlenty said about his first online town hall, “I think we should (have) more Facebook town halls in the future. Thanks to all who participated and we’ll do the best we can to get more questions in during future events.”

[Former White House Chief of Staff Erskine] Bowles has been in touch with Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer about creating a deficit-reduction video game that would enable anyone with a computer to take a stab at balancing the budget, much like the 1994 commission did.

Updated for 2010, Kerrey says, such a game could “go viral.”

The tech site Gizmodo picked up on the video game mention.

While it might not “go viral,” this might be a good way for the ordinary citizen to understand the Federal budget issues.

The White House wants to identify Grand Challenges in science and technology that will help inspire a new era of innovation. And they’re asking for your ideas, right on Twitter. These challenges will inspire innovations that create jobs, improve education, power clean energy, transform health care, and more.

Here’s how to help:

1. Think big! Imagine an ambitious science or technology challenge (something huge like the moon landing!) which you think can inspire great new ideas and inventions.
2. Reply to the @whitehouse tweet with your idea, or a link to ideas you find interesting. Use the hashtag #whgc.
3. Encourage your friends and followers to respond, too!

This is a pretty neat way to use the social networking site Twitter to help the country. And you organization could do something similar by polling Facebook friends or Twitter users in your community.

And just so you know this is real, here’s the tweet from @whitehouse:

What Grand Challenge should be on our Nation’s to-do list? Reply w/your idea now! http://bit.ly/dy9fkL #whgc

About this page, FEMA writes:

FEMA has been engaging in Web 2.0 tools and on social media sites nationwide as part of its mission to prepare the nation for disasters. FEMA’s goals with social media are: to provide timely and accurate information related to disaster preparedness response and recovery; provide the public with another avenue for insight into the agency’s operations; and engage in what has already become a critical medium in today’s world of communications. FEMA’s social media ventures function as supplemental outreach, and as appropriate channels for unofficial input.

All FEMA social media accounts outside of the www.FEMA.gov domain carry the branded femainfocus look and feel. This provides consistency and accountability for content in that the public and our partners can rest assured it is the authorized FEMA account and that the information is accurate. Citizens can engage more easily with the emergency management community through social media sites, and increase their role in disaster preparedness, response and recovery.

FEMA has wholeheartedly engaged social media, how does your organization stack up?

PS- You can follow Stephen Goldsmith on Twitter, he’s @S_Goldsmith.

I’m on it: Thanks RT @pb83 Mayor there’s a MONSTER pothole at Munn & 18th Ave. Sumbody’s gonna lose a piece of there car.

The original tweet from the Newark resident was:

@CoryBooker not sure who 2 address this 2, but there’s a MONSTER pothole at Munn & 18th Ave. Sumbody’s gonna lose a piece of there car.

That’s service for you.