Seattle City Council Joins the 21st Century, Spruces Up Their Website

Seattle City Council: Blogging like teenagers during an episode of "Gossip Girl."

Government-run websites and resources are notoriously behind the times. Remember how long it took the Feds to buy "Whitehouse.com" (and how long before that it was a porn site)? However, the members of Seattle's City Council, several of whom were early adopters to Twitter and Facebook, have always been a few steps ahead. Yesterday, Seattle.gov caught up with them. Introducing: Council Connect.

Councilmember's personal blogs are a great resource--unfortunately, in the days of yore (read: before yesterday), this information was dispersed in all directions. Jean Godden and Sally Bagshaw were fairly active through the City Council homepage. Bruce Harrell had his own website. Tim Burgess was over on Typepad doing his thing. However, there was previously no one place where this information was centralized. To follow all of the happenings and thoughts of the City Council, which are often slightly newsworthy but not press release worthy, one would have to track down each of the councilmember's personal blogs and subscribe. Which is alright, but made keeping tabs on what they were up to difficult. The new site offers a comprehensive way to stay up-to-date with each councilmember's blog.

Additionally, the new site offers a quick link to watch live City Council meetings, an events calendar, an easy-to-reach photostream and a resource for archived press releases. One feature that is missing, however, is a feed of the councilmember's Twitter accounts, which would be helpful in receiving to-the-minute information.

In a city where councilmembers are known by name and followed closely for their decisions, the City's decision to invest in a more usable site is a smart one. And with elections creeping around the corner, Council Connection will surely serve as a valuable tool for the media and civilians alike.