A bit of time has passed since you last read a post on this blog. Two years and one month, to be more precise.
Operating a blog is an investment; particularly in time but also energy and resources. When you have a lot of other commitments and projects on the go, or work requires more of your time than you have available for outside interests, or any number of circumstances simply arrive that prevent you from being able to afford that investment then often you are forced to rationalise the side-projects you are working on and make some tough decisions about which ones are viable.
Mike Riversdale created and curated this account from March 2009 and has done a fantastic job not only of curating this account but being a vocal and highly active proponent of open government and data transparency in general. This account is only one of several initiatives Mike has driven and I genuinely hope I can take the reins and continue to do justice to this effort as well as the community that we've seen grow around NZ Government Feeds.
Mike and I have previously worked together at Fronde NZ Limited and we both share an enthusiasm for the web and Internet communities generally. My background differs from his in that I am a Microsoft web developer by trade but I am also a technologist and I have a genuine interest in seeing new and innovative ways to expose data to users.
My vision for this account is to try to increase the community around this account as well as capturing and sharing as much information as is practicable into how information used on this site is used. Expect a predictable schedule of blog posts and if you have any interest in becoming involved in furthering the use of central government or public sector information, please get in touch.
Cheers,
Phil Wheeler
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
NZGovtFeeds Hits The Web
(been ages, sorry everyone)
The @NZGovtFeeds Twitter feed has been plowing along for quite some time now and picking up a steady stream of followers (last one at time of typing was @HonBillEnglish). On the other side the complimentary Facebook account has had much lower activity.
But the idea of NZGovtFeeds was never to "do it for the people" but to inspire others to take the data coming out of the NZ Government (in our case RSS feeds) and do something with it. And we are pleased to say that is exactly what has happened.
Check out http://nzgovtfeeds.wellington.gen.nz
This is an off-shoot of the Wellynews site and takes the OPML file we created and publishes the feeds on the site. BUT, it adds value by aut-tagging content and letting you slice-and-dice the feeds.
Find out more on the creators blog post: http://wah.wellington.gen.nz/2010/03/17/new-zealand-government-feeds/
Labels:
new zealand
Thursday, April 23, 2009
NZ Government Agencies Aren't Always Promoting Their RSS Feeds Well
If there is any feed on your site then please add all of them to every page of the site and not just (say) the "News" page. You are missing out on subscribers!
It is easy to do (if you have access to the underlying HTML code) - place this between the
<head> and </head> section of every pageExample code is:
<link rel="/"alternate"">type="application/atom+xml" title="NZGovtFeeds (Unofficial) - Atom" href="http://nzgovtfeeds.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default" />
Labels:
lessons
New Zealand Government Feed Standard 2009 (Second Consultation)
This proposed Government feed standard based on Atom will replace the 2003 e-GIF RDF specification for New Zealand Government feeds.
The consultation period runs to 30th April 2009.
Leave your comments on the Research e-Labs blog ...
Labels:
new zealand,
ssc
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Updated Biosecurity.govt.nz Twitter Feeds
Thanks to Simon Green (@lumbarius) for the heads-up on the error in feeding the Biosecurity.govt.nz feeds (agency feed info).
We have:
- Removed the duplicate feed of "Biosecurity recent"
- Added the trailing ']'
Labels:
twitter
Friday, April 17, 2009
Who is NZGovtFeeds?
Mike Riversdale from MiramarMike.co.nz based in Wellington, New Zealand.
I have no official connection with the New Zealand government but do, from time to time, contract to NZ Government agencies around "online collaboration". I am also active and passionate about open information and believe governments should lead the way :-)
Specifically I have no connection with the RSS feeds being fed out by the various NZ Government agencies - if you have feedback around the content then please get in touch with the appropriate agency.
Also check out the NZ State Services Commission (SSC) blog: A wizard behind a curtain
Thursday, April 2, 2009
How On Earth Do We Keep The List Up-To-Date?
How do we know when more New Zealand Governments add RSS feeds? How do we keep the OPML file up to date or even the "Invalid" feeds list?
We could randomly re-check the Agencies without a feed list.
We could do a Google search: 'rss site:govt.nz'
Both sort of work but are time consuming for us non-paid devotees of NZGovtFeeds.
How about this then, you tell us by emailing new and changed feeds to NZGovtFeeds@gmail.com
OR fill in this simple form:
We could randomly re-check the Agencies without a feed list.
We could do a Google search: 'rss site:govt.nz'
Both sort of work but are time consuming for us non-paid devotees of NZGovtFeeds.
How about this then, you tell us by emailing new and changed feeds to NZGovtFeeds@gmail.com
OR fill in this simple form:
New Zealand Government Twitter "Who's Who"
Over at the Government 2.0 - Best Practices Wiki there is highly useful New Zealand Government Tweeple as initiated by SSC's @MattLane
If you know of missing NZ Government Twitter accounts then please edit the page and add them
If you know of missing NZ Government Twitter accounts then please edit the page and add them
Labels:
government,
new zealand,
twitter
Friday, March 6, 2009
NZGovtFeeds output, what should we develop?
The list of official RSS feeds from New Zealand Government agencies currently "exports" useing a few online methods such but the goal of NZGovtFeeds is to show the many ways that these feeds can be used including mashups, widgets/gadgets, smart phones ... anything.
What should we "show off" next?
RSS titles are not always clear
There are a lot of NZ Government RSS feeds that have useless titles such as "Latest News" and "Updates".
We suspect this is due to an inward view on the information and the feeds are designed by people that only work in the one place and to them it is obvious - not thinking of the reader. It could also be due to limitations on the Web CMS ... your thoughts.
We suspect this is due to an inward view on the information and the feeds are designed by people that only work in the one place and to them it is obvious - not thinking of the reader. It could also be due to limitations on the Web CMS ... your thoughts.
Labels:
lessons
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