This year of 2009 was an eventful one: not only did I graduate and move to a new city, but my mom got a Facebook. So much for party-planning and sharing blackmail-worthy photos—online social media is so grown up and ubiquitous now that even government is getting involved.

The last year of the first decade of the (last?) millennium will go down as the one in which government embraced social media as a means for open democracy and transparency.

Recovery and Stimulus

It all started in January with the inauguration of President Barack Obama and chatter of recovery and stimulus... recovery from the Bush years if you were a Democrat, or stimulus of a fervent opposition movement if you were a Republican. Oh, and there was that other recovery —

the initial Recovery.gov website — which served as a silver lining for citizens worried about where the billions in stimulus money was going. It was a 1.0 version of a Gov 2.0 idea, but a good place to start the year.

Meanwhile the military began exploring social media options around the same time they were receiving flack for the lack of internet access for troops. Soon enough, government agencies across the board were clamoring towards established social media sites and utilizing the technologies on their own pages.

Poke me!

In an attempt to reach younger citizens and everyone else who is now on Facebook, government agencies and politicians have been publishing and polishing their profiles and pages. There have been template profiles for politicians since 2007, and Facebook has trained various representatives in both strategy and etiquette. Naturally, there had to be a Bill passed about this new-fangled business, and Congress voted to expand the “no franking rules” to Facebook, maybe to keep Harry Reid from poking everyone.

Tweet me!

Although the history books (and my last name-induced bias) will say that June’s Iranian elections marked the induction of Twitter as a viable means for affecting open democracy, the U.S. government had been tweeting a few months before that—always on the cutting edge, right? Agencies from NASA to the USDA are now fluent in tweetspeak, shaped and created by the 140-character limit. To keep track of all the government chirping, there’s the venerable govtwit.com.

YouTube, Who-Tube? GovTube.

Thank goodness this year’s YouTube trends consisted of a lot more gov and a lot less Chris Crocker. The Department of Defense is all about YouTube and interactivity on its re-vamped site. In an unexpectedly cool move, the IRS started posting YouTube videos, with offerings in American Sign Language and Spanish as well.

…And earlier-2000s kinda stuff

If Twitter and Facebook are too big a step for your government agency, just create some sort of ‘open forum.’ Any sort. The city of Santa Cruz asked constitutents for advice on solving its budget crisis and FCC established its “net neutrality” forum, openinternet.gov, to discuss the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). In March, the first online town hall meeting took place at WhiteHouse.gov.

Go-go-gadget-gov!

Aside from increasing online presence, government agencies have continued to embrace technological advances to supplement the tasks they’ve always done. Various police forces have begun to use GPS to track suspects, and electronic medical records became a mainstay in the healthcare industry, largely due to incentives from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). In a Gov 2.009 All-Star move, the CDC started texting subscribers tips on how to prevent the year’s hottest disease, H1N1.

Going rogue…online

Some agencies went above and beyond Facebook.com and decided to implement their own social networking platforms: USDA included “Facebook-style” bits to juice up their online training, and FCC started a social networking site called reboot.fcc.gov to facilitate communication amongst FCC employees. To enact “digital diplomacy” the State Department started a social networking site, exchangesconnect, to encourage cultural sensitivity. The CDC crafted a super-fun video game on how to effectively dodge swine [flu]. With resume uploading and job-searching capabilities, USAJOBS became the Monster.com of the the federal job market.

So official, there were conferences!

Whether we’re talking Star Trek or selling insurance, you know something’s legitimately a “thing” if adults hold conventions about it. The Gov 2.0 Summit and expo in September marked the coming-of-age for the Gov 2.0 movement and brought some Silicon Valley sparkle to fuddy-duddy D.C. A bevy of barcamps, meetups and other conferences on social media and open government filled up the calendar.

A tech-filled year from a tech-filled Administration

Aside from mentioning “Facebook, Twitter and Myspace” in his education speech, the Obama Administration’s recognition of social media’s resonating effect in our society was illustrated through the early incorporation of popular web models into the administration’s online presence. No less should be expected from the president whose campaign consisted of a very large, very active web community. A new position was created, the Federal Chief Information Officer, pioneered by Vivek Kundra, and Google executives have aided and joined the administration, despite (or in spite of, perhaps) antitrust hullaballoo.

It’s all about open-access and centralized data

The administration’s Open Government Initiative has largely been waged on a cyber front, and this week, deadlines were issued for agencies to get their info online. The (still incomplete) Holy Grail of open government access, Data.gov, boasts a host of datasets, and thisweknow.org utilizes data.gov information and presents it in user-friendly lists. Federal Resources for Educational Excellence, FREE, is an online conglomerate of federal agency-provided lessons for teachers and interested laymen alike. The Consumer Product Safety Commission began developing a database of product recalls, and foodsafety.gov is the federal webMD on what not to eat.The Government Printing Office (GPO) launched Federal Digital System (FDsys) to digitize all government documents, with easy downloadability as the aim. Open access of information relies on open identity technologies, where users log in, and peruse sites as themselves. Federal websites are no longer tedious brochure-esque pages meant for numerous anonymous hits, but are now interactive user-influenced networks.

Not just a one-way street

As feds flock to private website models, private websites too are embracing and seeking government. Facebook launched the Facebook and Government page to encourage government agencies to start pokin’ around the network. GovLoop brought together feds in cyberspace while Google started “Public Data” to satisfy the data-hungry as data.gov gets off the ground. Google’s charitable Project 10^100 contest also featured plenty of Gov 2.0 innovations. There were even Gov 2.0 iPhone apps, including Congress in Your Pocket and Outbreaks Near Me.

The feds’ relationship with the Internet has grown immensely since the “series of tubes”-days. Whether my fellow iGen/GenY-ers like it or not, 2009 marked the year of the rise of social media. We can tweet at the President, we can watch government officials on YouTube, and we can join advocacy groups for issues that may never end up on a ballot. With every click and text, we continue to realize the potential use of social media to affect and actualize open democracy. It’s a beautiful thing... for which trading in an adult-free Facebook is a real steal.