GSA embraces 2.0

Your son and daughter use social media. Maybe you do, too. And now the General Services Administration just made it easier for federal employees to use YouTube and similar online tools to communicate their messages.

With a nod to the growing popularity of social media, the agency has reached agreements with Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo and blip.tv for government workers to tap into these tools to communicate. These agreements will allow government agencies to get the word out about government services and help citizens voice their concerns, views and complaints.

"We need to get official information out to sites where people are already visiting and encourage them to interact with their government," says GSA Acting Administrator Paul Prouty. "Millions of Americans visit new media sites every day." Added GSA's acting Associate Administrator Marthir Dorris: "The vision of USA.gov is to improve the public's experience when engaging with the government, and these new era agreements will further empower agencies to use new media."  

The federal government may have been behind the times when it came to 21^st century technology, but it is gaining ground fast. We look forward to the next chapter.

For more on social networking tools:
- check out this GSA press release