This past weekend was very busy for me. I gave two presentations on the Hill about how GovTrack can be useful for staffers for Members of Congress. Some notes are posted here. After that I gave presentations to a diverse group during a conference on how semantic web technology can be used for civic data and on open government data standards and expectations

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You may have seen the new YouTube channels for the House and Senate and the kind of dorky video intro from our congressional leaders, which Sunlight’s Paul Blumenthal reported on. Basically, Congress has entered the 21st century (finally) by starting to communicate with their constituents using video, which is fantastic news.

You can follow these videos on GovTrack!

1) There is a new feed dedicated to these videos, aggregating all videos posted by Members to YouTube. You can find it on the feeds page.

2) Pages for Members now highlight their latest YouTube video at the top of the page: example .

3) Feeds/Trackers for Members (which you can subscribe to directly, include with your other trackers, or get email updates for) now include their latest video postings: example.

As GovTrack continues its fifth year and we head into the new session of Congress starting in 2009, we have a bunch of new site updates to share. Read it all..

Sometimes I get really frustrated with politics, which has become so much about denying, oppressing, and outspending the other viewpoint rather than debate and consensus. GovTrack received this question through the bill Q&A system:

Why does anyone think our government has the right to allow women to murder their children?  What can be done to ensure this bill never passes?

and it just makes me want to shut the site down and move on with life. Read it all..

Now that we’ve passed election season, things are pretty much wrapping up in the legislative branch. The House has already adjourned and will start a new session on January 3, 2009, according to the resolution H. Con. Res. 440. The Senate is still in session and will meet this month, but without the House they will probably not push any measures forward. Read it all..

We’ve hit the 50,000 mark, the number of people that have created an account on the site to configure their trackers and get email updates. More updates coming in a few weeks.

If you’ve been here before August, you surely have noticed already the most obvious recent change. But besides the visual refresh, there are a number of new things here at GovTrack, and more planned. Read on for details. Read it all..

Last week I added a new feature to GovTrack called Community Q&A. It was inspired by a question I received by mail (the subject of my last blog post). If one person that has a question actually took the time to email, then there must be hundreds of other questions you all have but haven’t asked. Read it all..

Congress is on break until mid January, so we’ll be going into a bit of hibernation here at GovTrack. Check back when Congress resumes mid January for the new GovTrack Community Blog, legislative analysis written by and for the users of this site.

Also, a quick plug for “Computing in the Cloud”, a conference at Princeton, January 14-15 where I’ll be a panelist.

And if you’re bored and looking for something to read, you might be interested in The Open House Project blog for some news on congressional transparency, open data, and related issues.

I received a few encouraging replies to an earlier post about you blogging here. I want to get some nonpartisan, thoughtful analysis of legislative issues posted on the front page here. If you’re interested in blogging here, drop me a note by emailing me at the address at the bottom of the page. [Update 12/1/07: I'm really delighted by all of the responses. Keep them coming! I fully expect a "community blog" will start up by the end of 2007.]