OpenCongress.org yesterday announced the release of a new set of web tools that have me pretty excited about spreading targeted legislative information online.
One of the more exciting tools is the syndication panel, which displays user-defined sets of OpenCongress information on other websites. For example:
As it now stands, we’re given the option to display the top Open Congress hits for Bills, Representatives, Senators, or search terms, ranked by blog mentions on technorati or by search frequency on Open Congress.
To me, the most significant development will come when the bill information is sortable by issue, which is apparently in the works:
We have plans to offer a wider variety of content in the widget soon that you can customize the panel even further — for example, bringing in issues that you care about, showcasing your elected officials, and more, so stay tuned…
When this happens, expect to see this widget all over the web. Websites organize naturally around specific interests, so when live-updated links to legislation are available for issue areas, that’s when the syndication tool will get broadly adopted.
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OpenCongress.org Tools Release Take 2: issue and bill tracking | The Open House Project // Aug 17, 2007 at 11:44 am
[...] When I first wrote about the OpenCongress.org new tools release, I was really excited. The ability to easily syndicate legislative information should help empower government data consumers. They’ve now released a new set of tools, which allow for syndication (through RSS and embeddable boxes) for customizable issues and also specific bills. [...]
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