USA vs EUROPE: A Government Website Battle

Jointly organized by the American Society for Public Administration (of which I’m a member) and the European Group of Public Administration (of which I’m not), the fifth annual TransAtlantic Dialogue commences in June at George Mason University.

This provides worthy fodder for what I’m about to argue: namely, that the European Union is beating the United States in its own game of Government 2.0 practices (considering the U.S. built the damned internet)–and it both amazes and pains me to watch.

I’ll set the battleground with two screen shots:

In honor of tomorrow’s celebration of Earth Day, the first is courtesy of the U.S. General Services Administration’s USA.gov listing of environment and natural resources; and the second is the European Union’s Europa directory of environment activities.

You may click either image for a zoomed-in look:

Surely I don’t need to explain why Europa kicks the USA’s butt, do I?

If I must, you can see information in multiple columns–and the data makes sense. It’s logically organized, providing intuitive links for wherever you might need to go for further environmental information in any of the EU member nations. Whereas the US list is, well, a list. How boring!

Considering the GSA recently instituted a list (another list, but a useful one) of government blogs, video collections, and other Government 2.0 content, I have faith the group can change the site layout to make it more in line with what my transatlantic colleagues use. The question is when; for until then, my score is Europe: 2 vs USA 1.

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