Two firsts for web 2.0 politics have been unveiled at the Prime Minister's Number 10 website.
First of all a system to allow the electorate to directly petition the Prime Minister has been launched. This is possibly the first time anyone has had the opportunity to directly petition the PM without shouting or throwing flour.
I posted about it last night over at my political blog and was perhaps a little sceptical. Other PR bloggers have picked up the story too.
The second first is that the people behind the petition and its open source software, mySociety, state that they hope the petition will be the first time a beta version of government software has gone live.
Tom Steinberg at mySociety writes:
"The site is being launched in beta, and will change over time. This might seem too commonplace to note for many of you, but it reflects a willingness to see a public IT service evolve in response to users, not simply fulfil a contract agreed in advance. mySociety exists partly to spread good practice in the public sector, and we think this is a nice example of that in action."
This is perhaps a more significant development than the online petition - at least to me. It'll be interesting to see how the civil service and government suppliers respond to the new economics of web 2.0 and the idea of a perpetual beta!
By the way, if anyone is unfamiliar with mySociety I would urge you to check out their website - they're responsible for some great work.
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