Well, the Victorian Government carried out an online survey to find out more about the visitors to sites in .vic.gov.au domain. I know the survey was on a number of different sites, I remember completing it when chasing some information on the Department of Premier and Cabinet. The survey had over 250,000 responses and the results make interesting reading, for anybody involved in a government agency website particularly in other Australian states. Because unlike Craig, who looked from a federal level, I believe the information can be extrapolated to other states. The demographics of Victorians using a Victorian Government websites, will be very similar to those of West Australians using a West Australian Government site or any resident of their state using one of their State Government websites. I know the limited demographics, I have seen for Western Australian Government websites are very similar to the Victorian Government website demographics.

In my opinion the interesting statistics are:

Online Activities

• 29% of visitors read RSS feeds
• 29% of visitors read blogs
• 10% of visitors maintain their own blog
• 23% of visitors contribute to online communities or forums
• 54% of visitors watch video on the web
• 14% of visitors access the internet through their mobile phone

This shows that visitors to government websites are sophisticated internet users. The numbers surprised me, I had expected about half that.

Government Services

• 64% of visitor would like to be able to comment on government policies and initiatives
• 61% of visitors want information relevant to their street, suburb or region
• 12% of visitors would like to be able to carry out transactions with government on their mobile

This indicates just how sophisticated and experienced internet users, visitors to government sites are. They have high expectations of government sites from experiences with other sites, regionalisation and the ability to comment are what they expect.

Only 14% of participants use their mobile device to visit websites, but over 80% of those want to use their mobile device to transact with government. As the number of people using mobile devices to visit websites increase and remember this survey was carried out late last year and early this year, before the current crop of web saavy phones like the iPhone arrive in Australia.

If I take one thing away from the results of the survey is that visitors to government websites have experienced internet users and have high expectations of what government sites should do.

• Whitehall Webby – digital media in government
• Emma Mulqueeny
• extended reach

However, my favourite recent discovery is eGov AU, the work of prolific Craig Tholmer. I would would be happy if I could post in week what Craig posted each day. As well as being Australian, the posts are usually quality articles that make me think.

If you know any other blogs covering eGov or the .gov space please let me know in the comments.

Sometimes I am just stuck on the wrong side of Australia, Ruth Ellison just posted some excellent upcoming events and I am only a little jealous, particularly:

Canberra Web Standard Group

Canberra Web Standards Group is happening tomorrow! We have two interesting topics covering GovDex: a tool to support collaboration across government agencies, and Wikis at work and it’s FREE.

More information and registration can be done at
http://webstandardsgroup.org/meetings/index.cfm?event_id=150

IA Cocktail Hour

Another free event for the Information Architects (IA) community and those interested in this space. This will be held tomorrow straight after Web Standards Group meeting.

More information can be found at
http://iacanberra.org/2008/03/26/ia-cocktail-hour-27-march-2008/

I might be a little late posting them here, they are already underway right now.But if you are in Canberra, you should pay attention to the Web Standards Group and IA Canberra sites or Ruth’s blog. These are great opportunities to learn and network.

The aim of this site is to showcase government web2.0 sites, but in this case I will make an exception because the 2020 Summit community site shows what can be done quickly and on a nonexistent budget.

On Monday morning there was a conversation on twitter between Laurel Papworth and Stephen Collins about the need to get people who understand the web into the 1000 attendees at the 2020 Summit. Within an hour 2020summit.org was created by Stephen and live.

Even if you are not interested in the 2020 Summit (and you should be), it is interesting to watch the web site evolve and see how the talented people behind the site engage the community. A lesson for anybody interested in building a site to engage a community.

Legal Aspects of Web 2.0 Activities: weighs in at over 150 pages and looks at the legal implication of government agencies using YouTube, MySpace and SecondLife. If you are involved in government or business and looking at using YouTube, MySpace or SecondLife, get this report it will clarify a number of issues for you. I found the section on copyright very interesting:

There is increasing support for the view that providing broad usage rights for Government copyright material is of social, economic and cultural benefit to the State

Citing Access the Government Information and Open Content Licensing: an Access and Use Strategy a 100 page report looking in detail at how Queensland Government information should be licensed. The conclusion, an open content model based on creative commons.

Both reports practise what they preach, they licensed under Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution Licence and well worth the effort to read, even if I have only consumed the excutive summary of both reports and few sections.