We're in New York this week for Personal Democracy Forum 2009. We're excited to sponsor the conference and host twenty outstanding Fellows here from across the country.

During his keynote speech this morning, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced an innovative use of publicly available Google services to help serve the citizens of New York City. Using Google Insights for Search, City Hall will identify the top items related to city government that New Yorkers are searching for and make sure that information on those topics is up-to-date and available on NYC.gov.

Mayor Bloomberg opened his speech by saying that technology allows us to "make government more accessible than ever" by "making it easier for people to get information." He called this new initiative "a grassroots approach to web design" that will help the city connect to its citizens.

This is the type of innovative approach to open government that we like to encourage and help facilitate. The city is using information about search trends that already exists to make sure they're providing information that New Yorkers are looking for.

The mayor also announced other ways New York City is using the internet. They're putting the city's 311 service on Skype, on Twitter, and online, so people can access information from 311 wherever they are. He also announced a new initiative to make city data available online, along with a competition for developers to create apps using this data.

More information is available from NYC.gov, and we hope other governments will see this as an example of how they can use our services to support open government.

Posted by Eric Hysen, Public Sector Team