Tweaser: noun — a movie teaser cut into a 6 second Vine video and tweet

I never expected to associate a “tweaser” with The Wolverine. (I assumed Wolverine’s healing powers would always extrude any splinter.)

That changed yesterday, when James Mangold, the director of the most recent cinematic treatment of the comic book hero’s adventures, tweeted the first “tweaser” of the new century. He used Twitter’s new Vine app to share the short clip, a tightly edited 6 seconds of  footage from the upcoming film. You can watch Vine’s big moment in tweet embedded below.

The tweaser. vine.co/v/bDExaiMjJ1F

— James Mangold (@mang0ld) March 25, 2013

Twitter certainly has come a long way from txt messages. As Lily Rothman quipped at Time, the emergence of a 6 second tweaser that can be retweeted, tumbled and embedded gives “new meaning to the intersection of Hollywood and Vine.”

Jen Yamato has the backstory behind 20th Century Fox’s debut of a 21st century tweaser over at Deadline, including credit to Fox executive Tony Sella for the coinage:

Last week FilmDistrict was the first studio to use Twitter’s new looping app as a marketing tool. Here’s an even buzzier use of Vine: A 6-second “tweaser” (that’s Twitter teaser, or “TWZZR”) previewing Fox’s July 26 superhero pic Wolverine.

I suspect that at least a few of the tweasers that go flickering by on Twitter, Vine and blog posts will lead people to do what I did: become aware of the upcoming and film and look for a longer version of the teaser trailer elsewhere online. If a tweaser comes with a custom short URL, so much the easier.

To that point, If you want to watch a higher quality “full-length” version of the teaser, there’s now a teaser trailer available on the iTunes Store and a YouTube version:
… which, it’s worth pointing out, can also be embedded in tweets.

Hopefully, history remember will remember “The Wolverine for more than being the subject of the world’s first “tweaser.” Then again, our attention spans may not be up to it, particularly if the length of the interactive media we consume continues to shorten at this rate.

Can journalists change their social media avatars to political symbols?

Nisha Chittal asked a number of journalists (including me) about where they stand for on using same-sex marriage symbols on their social media profiles.

Here’s what she found: “The answer is a multi-layered one: it depends on the journalist, the outlet they work for, the social media platform, and whether the journalist is covering this week’s Supreme Court hearings.”

I was honored to see that Nisha gave me the “kicker quote” at the end. If you’d like to weigh in on your stance on this ethical issue, comment away.

Here’s the statement I submitted to her inquiry:

In general, the consensus answer amongst the journalists I respect is that changing your avatar to a symbol like this is not OK, based upon the ethics policies of places like the AP, WSJ, NYT, PBS or NPR.

I think the capacity to demonstrate support for one side of a contentious social issue like this varies, depending upon the masthead a journalist is working under, the ethics policy of that masthead, the role of the journalist and the coverage area of the journalist. Staking out positions on a reporter’s beat is generally frowned upon.

Opinion journalists who regularly take positions on the issues of the day as columnists have often already made it clear where they stand on a policy or law. Advocacy journalism has an established place in the marketplace for ideas. Readers know where a writer stands and are left to judge the strength of an argument and the evidence presented to back it.

If a reporter takes on overt, implicit position on an issue that she is reporting on, however, will it be possible to interview sources who oppose it?

On the other hand, there are a number of social issues that may have had “sides” in past public discourse but have now become viewpoints that few journalists would find tenable to support today.

How many journalists were able to remain neutral or objective in their coverage of slavery in the 1860s? Womens’ suffrage in the early 20th century? Civil rights in the 1960s? Child slavery, sex trafficking, so-called “honor rape” or the impression of child soldiers in the present?

Interracial marriage was illegal in some states in the Union, not so many years ago. That is not the case any longer. It seems to me that gay marriage is on the same trajectory. The arc of the moral universe is long indeed, but I tend to agree with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on its trajectory: it bends towards justice.

White House supports unlocking cellphones but Congress must update DMCA to fix rule

“…neither criminal law nor technological locks should prevent consumers from switching carriers when they are no longer bound by a service agreement or other obligation,” wrote R. David Edelman, senior advisor for Internet, innovation, & privacy, in an official response to a popular e-petition.

In other words, the Obama administration has come down on the side of consumers unlocking their phones. That’s a good thing for every user, from what I can see.

The meat of the reply, in terms of what they’ll actually DO about the e-petition, recognizes the authority of the Librarian of Congress and the validity of the rulemaking process, And as far as I can tell, the statement from the Library of Congress does not indicate that they’ll be changing, which leaves it to Congress to act.

“The question of locked cell phones was raised by participants in the Section 1201 rulemaking conducted between September 2011 and October 2012 by the Register of Copyrights, who in turn advises the Librarian of Congress. The rulemaking is a process spelled out by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in which members of the public can request exemptions from the law to enable circumvention of technological protection measures. In the case of cell phones, the request was to allow circumvention of technological protection measures controlling access to copyrighted software on cell phones.

The rulemaking is a technical, legal proceeding and involves a lengthy public process. It requires the Librarian of Congress and the Register of Copyrights to consider exemptions to the prohibitions on circumvention, based on a factual record developed by the proponents and other interested parties. The officials must consider whether the evidence establishes a need for the exemption based on several statutory factors. It does not permit the U.S. Copyright Office to create permanent exemptions to the law.

As designed by Congress, the rulemaking serves a very important function, but it was not intended to be a substitute for deliberations of broader public policy. However, as the U.S. Copyright Office has recognized many times, the 1201 rulemaking can often serve as a barometer for broader policy concerns and broader policy action. The most recent rulemaking has served this purpose.”

To put it another way, the Librarian of Congress heard these concerns during the rulemaking process and decided an exemption from the DMCA was not warranted. This White House response does not change that decision. If you read that letter differently, let me know in the comments.

For this rule to change, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act itself, which led to the contentious rule, will need to be amended.

“In today’s phone unlocking response, the White House took a strong stance in favor of consumers, competition, and innovation,” said Sherwin Siy, VP of Legal Affairs at Public Knowledge, in an emailed statement.

“We’re very glad that the administration recognizes the significant problems created when copyright laws tread upon the rights of consumers to use the products they have bought and owned. These problems will continue, however, so long as the law is written in such a way that laws intended to protect artists can be abused to stifle competition–not just in cell phones, but also in a wide variety of other products and services. Public Knowledge has long sought changes to the DMCA that would prevent not just this problem, but many other abuses. We look forward to working with Congress and the administration to put these changes in place.”

A statement from the author of the petition

“I received a call from David Edelman at the White House, and he gave me the news,” related Sina Khanifar (@sinak), who introduced the e-petition, in an emailed statement.

“I’m really glad to see the White House taking action on an issue that’s clearly very important to people. As the White House said in the response, keeping unlocking legal is really “common sense,” and I’m excited to see them recognizing this. David was enthusiastic about getting this fixed as quickly as possible.

This is a big victory for consumers, and I’m glad to have played a part in it. A lot of people reacted skeptically when I originally started the petition, with lots of comments to the effect of ‘petitions don’t do anything.’  The optimist in me is really glad to have proved them wrong. The White House just showed that they really do listen, and that they’re willing to take action.

While I think this is wonderful, I think the real culprit here is Section 1201 of the DMCA, the controversial “anti-circumvention provision.” I discussed with the White House the potential of pushing to have that provision amended or removed, and they want to continue that conversation. I’ll have exciting news on the campaign to make this happen tomorrow.”

Bottom line?

My read of this response is that the White House essentially has said that it would support “narrow legislative fixes” (over to you, Congress!), encourages mobile carriers to “enable customers to fully reap the benefits and features they expect and notes that the FCC has a role to play.

“From a communications policy perspective, this raises serious competition and innovation concerns, and for wireless consumers, it doesn’t pass the common sense test,” said FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, in a prepared statement. “The FCC is examining this issue, looking into whether the agency, wireless providers, or others should take action to preserve consumers’ ability to  unlock their mobile phones. I also encourage Congress to take a close look and consider a legislative solution.”

To put it another way, thank you for the e-petition, we agree with the principle, but the rule stands unless Congress acts.

There are other aspects of the response, however, worthy of note.

Tech journalist Rob Pegoraro also highlighted an important element of this response: “The White House didn’t just endorse legalizing phone unlocking, it also backed Carterfone for wireless.”

The White House’s response to a petition urging the administration to undo the recent re-criminalization of unlocking cell phones goes farther than I would have thought possible. In it, tech advisor R. David Edelman endorsed legalizing unlocking not just phones but tablets–a type of hardware unmentioned in the petition. Then he wrote this: “if you have paid for your mobile device, and aren’t bound by a service agreement or other obligation, you should be able to use it on another network.”

That would be a huge step forward for the wireless business–and would bring it in line with wired telecom, where the FCC’s “Carterfone” decision ended the Bell System’s control of the hardware we could plug into its lines. It’s a big deal for the administration to endorse.

This response is also a modest victory for online activism and open government, as expressed on the We the People platform.

“This is terrific news,” said Derek Khanna, a vocal advocate for this change, in an emailed statement:

“It shows the power of the people to affirmatively act to fix policy rather than just stop bad policy.  We the people have this power when we come together to fight for positive, common-sense solutions. This is a major affirmative victory for the digital generation that stood up against censorship of the internet through SOPA a year ago. The work of this movement is not done, now Congress must follow through – and it will require continued activism and engagement from average people who made this possible.

A free society should not require its citizens to petition their government every three years to allow access to technologies that are ordinary and commonplace. Innovation cannot depend upon a permission-based rulemakings requiring approval every three years from an unelected bureaucrat.  A free society should not ban technologies unless there is a truly overwhelming and compelling governmental interest.”

[Image Credit: Josh Bancroft]

Hacks at Twitter, New York Times, WSJ and Washington Post highlight need for better security hygiene

Earlier tonight, I received an email I would just as soon not have gotten from Twitter, along with 250,000 Twitter users who had their password reset. Twitter security director Bob Lord explained why I’d received the email on the company blog:

“This week, we detected unusual access patterns that led to us identifying unauthorized access attempts to Twitter user data. We discovered one live attack and were able to shut it down in process moments later. However, our investigation has thus far indicated that the attackers may have had access to limited user information – usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords – for approximately 250,000 users.”

Mike Isaac has been following the story the hack at Twitter at AllThingsD, if you want the latest news tonight.

After the password reset, I went through revoked Twitter authorization access to a number of unused apps, something I’ve been doing periodically for years now. That habit is among Twitter’s security recommendations.

I’m thinking about other social media accounts now, too. Shortly after Nicole Perloth began covering IT security for the New York Times, she shifted her practices:

“Within weeks, I set up unique, complex passwords for every Web site, enabled two-step authentication for my e-mail accounts, and even covered up my computer’s Web camera with a piece of masking tape — a precaution that invited ridicule from friends and co-workers who suggested it was time to get my head checked.”

She talked to two top-notch security experts and wrote up a useful list of good digital security practices. Unfortunately, it may be that it takes getting hacked and embarrassed (as I was on Twitter, on Christmas Eve a couple years ago) to change what how people approach securing their digital lives.

I don’t recommend that sort of experience to anyone. I was lucky, was tipped nearly right away and was able to quickly get help from the remarkable Del Harvey, head of the Twitter Safety team.

It could have been much, much worse. I’m thinking of Mat Honan, a Wired journalist who experienced an epic hacking that came about through a chain of  compromised accounts at Amazon, iTunes, Gmail and Twitter. After a lot of work, Honan managed to recover his data, including some precious pictures of his child. In the wake of the hack, he turned on 2-factor authentication on Google and Facebook, turned off “Find my” Apple device, and set up dedicated, secret accounts for password management. Honan isn’t alone in the tech journalist ranks: he just happens to have a bigger platform than most and was willing to make his own painful experience the subject of an extensive story.

A jarring reality is that even people who are practicing reasonably good security hygiene can and do get p0wned. Unfortunately, the weakest point in many networks are the humans — that’s reportedly how Google ran into trouble, when key employees were “spear phished” during “Operation Aurora,” targeted with social engineering attacks that enabled hackers to access the networks.

The last paragraph of Lord’s post suggests that a similar expertise was at work at Twitter, although he does not specify a source.

“This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident. The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked. For that reason we felt that it was important to publicize this attack while we still gather information, and we are helping government and federal law enforcement in their effort to find and prosecute these attackers to make the Internet safer for all users.”

It’s been true for a decade but it’s even clearer in the second month of 2013: practicing basic information security hygiene is now a baseline for anyone else online, particularly those entrusted with handling confidential sources or sensitive information.

Chris Soghoian was clear about the importance of journalists and media companies getting smarter about keeping sources and information safe in 2011. Tonight, I am not sanguine about how much has changed since in the news industry and beyond.

Two days ago, the New York Times disclosed that hackers had infiltrated …the New York Times. The next day, The Wall Street Journal has disclosed similar intrusions. Earlier today, Brian Krebs reported that the Washington Post was broadly infiltrated by Chinese hackers in 2012. The Post confirmed the broad outlines of an attack on its computers.

If you’re a journalist & you’re not using a password manager+unique, long random passwords per website: stop, install and configure one now.

— Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) February 2, 2013

If you have a moment this weekend, think through how you’re securing your devices, networks and information. If you use Twitter, visit Twitter.com and update your password. If you haven’t turned on 2-factor authentication for Facebook and Gmail, do so. Update your Web browser and use HTTPS to connect to websites. disable Java in your Web browser. Think through what would happen if you were hacked, in terms of what numbers you would call and where and how your data is backed up. Come up with tough passwords that aren’t easily subject to automated cracking software.

And then hope that researchers figure out a better way to handle authentication for all of the places that require a string of characters we struggle to remember and protect.

Want good online comments? Create communities and moderate them.

I’ve been clear that about why I value blog comments before. If you’ve spent any time online, however, you know how bad many comment sections are. Why is that the case? Read Bora Zivkovic on commenting threads, in easily one of the best posts on the topic that I’ve ever read. It’s a long post, but it’s well worth your time. Zivkovic links to a forthcoming paper [PDF] that anyone in charge of comments should read, regarding how the tone of comments affects readers.The short version is that unmoderated, acidic comment sections polarizes readers and can lead them to believe in science less.

I discovered the post through NYT Journalism professor Jay Rosen, when he tweeted it:

You wanna know why your comment threads suck? You won’t like the answer, but @boraz can tell you bit.ly/WddaJd Because he nailed it.

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) January 29, 2013

Zivkovic, who is the blogs editor at the Scientific American, did nail it. I guessed that the answer to Rosen’s tweet was a lack of active participation by a moderator/author, and that’s more or less what I took away from this post. (I suspect he may have been directing his tweet at journalists who don’t — or can’t — spend the time moderating blog posts and social media profiles, along with the editors and publishers who employ them.) Rosen explained more about why he thought the post was important on a public post on his Facebook profile:

Nothing gets people pumped to denounce the Internet for destroying reasoned discourse like the state of online commenting. And it is difficult to deny that many comment sections are sewers. Also, it’s not true that to be a smart, web-smart publisher you MUST have comments. It’s a choice. There will always be good reasons not do have comments, and good reasons to have comments. But as to *why* the comment sections are sewers, we actually know a lot about this. We also know a lot about how to make them better. But many online publishers and newspaper journalists don’t want to know because they are looking for a “set it and forget it” solution that does not exist. Bora Zivkovic covers all of this and more in one of the best posts you will read about online commenting. Well worth your time.

I think good comments require persistent identity (not “real” identity), moderation tools and active moderation. Without that mix, you get the toxic stew that is pervasive across far too many forums online.

Agree? Disagree? Hey, let me know in the comments!

I Heard It Through The App Vine

After surfing around a bit tonight, I’m not sure yet whether the new Vine App will be to video what Instagram is for pictures. (Vine went live last Friday, when I was on vacation in Anguilla.) The amount of buzz I’ve found upon returning from vacation suggests at least a few of the people I follow and read think it’s possible.

It sounds like the initial launch was a bit buggy for some users, though I had no issues when I downloaded and installed Vine tonight. I found it quite easy to join, find friends from Twitter and my address book (if not Facebook) and then to create and share a 6 second spot using the app, which I promptly deleted.

Vine is Twitter’s first standalone app, like Facebook’s Poke or Messenger. As is the case with tweets, vines have their own permalink and play in embedded tweets, like Twitter CEO Dick Costolo’s tweet that shows how to make steak tartare:

Steak tartare in six seconds. vine.co/v/bOIqn6rLeIDvia @dhof

— dick costolo (@dickc) January 23, 2013

A mobile social network that’s built around mobile sharing of videos from iOS devices and integrated into other media, particularly tweets and blog posts, could have legs online — along with many other body parts. Tonight, posts on multiple outlets suggested that Vine has a “porn problem.”

I’m not sure if this revelation will not shock many long-time observers of people’s behavior online, when faced with webcams. Exhibit A: Chatroulette. I instantly thought of Avenue Q’s classic assessment of what the Internet is for.

So Vine now has porn on it. As someone once said, “porn is the mic check of the Internet. If you’re not getting porn, it’s not working.”

— jonathanstray (@jonathanstray) January 28, 2013

(With a little help from Twitter, I was able to source the quote to Ethan Zuckerman’s 2008 talk at ETech on the cute cat theory.)

I tend to agree with Joshua Topolsky’s assessment at The Verge: it’s Apple that has the porn problem, not Twitter or Vine. We’ll see how Apple responds. Steve Jobs was clear in 2010 when he wrote that Apple has a “moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone.” Apple does not, however, censor the websites or, critically, user-generated content (UGC) on them when users access them through the Safari mobile Web browser. Treating UGC platforms like Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google+ like Web browsers might make more sense to users. (I don’t know how that approach would sit in Cupertino or the Federal Trade Commission.)

Regardless of the larger issues surrounding Apple’s policies as a powerful gatekeeper for app makers, parents take note: letting young children search raw Twitter feeds or Vine apps for #porn is going to turn up media that’s NSFW, much less NSFK(ids).

While there’s certainly porn to be found, I didn’t see any when I watched the automagically randomized selection of vines at Vinepeek, which I found thanks to a tweet from Mitch Kapor. Despite inevitable flashes of crudity and banality, I found many of these glimpses of shared humanity endearing, just as YouTube can be at its best.

There are many other ways Vine can be used for business or other less salacious purposes, however, as Chris Brogan pointed out on Friday. Given my interest in cooking, I think creative spots that show how to make different recipes, like the one Costolo filmed, could be particularly interesting. While there are plenty of possibilities for media creation, for I’m not sure whether journalists will wholeheartedly move to quickly adopt Vine professionally, although there were certainly plenty of early adopters on Instagram.

I remember the idea of a social network of video shorts when it first floated to the top of my social stream: it was called Seesmic, and Loic Le Meur shuttered it in 2009. That said, the context for Vine is different, given the tens of millions of iPhones and iPads in people’s hands today.

I think Vine will be worth watching, so to speak. If Vine does catch on, expect “vining” and “vines” to become part of the tech vernacular.

With more than 5 million users, “We the People” want to be heard online

Use of one of the White House’s signature open government efforts, its e-petition platform, has exploded over the last six months. New data released today by the White House strongly suggests that We The People is the first open government platform that has gone mainstream.

As of January 14, 2013, there are now 5,410,525 total We The People users.

That’s up from 2,756,057 in late August 2012, doubling over the course of 6 months.

There are 141,310 total petitions, up from 45,901 in late August 2012, more than a 3-fold increase.

There have been 9,178,278 total signatures, up from 3,320,520, nearly a 3-fold increase since late August 2012. The majority of this growth came after the election, when petitions to let states secede from the U.S.A. popped on the platform and drew broadcast media attention, which in turn drove more awareness of the platform.

On many levels, this makes sense: more people have access to the Internet now, particularly through their mobile devices, and the use of social media has exploded. These three factors have connected more people to government and to one another, combining to enable them to use the Internet as a platform for collective action to speak out about issues that matter to them.

We the People was launched in November 2011 as an effort to give citizens a voice in government in the Internet age. While the platform was new, the idea was not: the British government has had online petitions for years. Across the Atlantic, however, there’s special context: the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States protects the right of the people to “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Petitions have played an important role in the nation’s history, from the Virginia Legislature to Quakers petitioning the colonial government and Continental Congress to abolish slavery.

“When I ran for this office, I pledged to make government more open and accountable to its citizens,” President Barack Obama said in 2011, when the platform was announced. “That’s what the new We the People feature on WhiteHouse.gov is all about – giving Americans a direct line to the White House on the issues and concerns that matter most to them.”

Prior to the election, this open government effort was a relatively slow burn, in terms of growth. Until the fall of 2012, the most significant role it had played came just under a year ago, when the White House took an official position on petitions on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), changing the political context for the bills.

On the evening of December 20 2012, however, President Barack Obama responded to 32 different e-petitions related to gun violence. It was the first direct response to an e-petition at +The White House by a President of the United States. While this remains the only e-petition that the President has responded to personally, before or since, it was a milestone in digital government, marking the first time that the President spoke directly to the people through the Internet about an issue they had collectively asked to be addressed using the Internet.

While We The People has been used as a punch line for DC political reporters, given some of the more edgy petitions that have gone up on it, this new set of data strongly suggests that a majority of users not only found the responses meaningful but intend to keep involved. According to the White House, of the more than 50,000 people who responded to a survey after receiving a response to their epetition:

• 86% said they would create or sign another petition
• 66% said the response was the administration was “helpful”
• 50% learned something new

To date, according to the data the White House released today, 201 petitions have crossed the 25,000 threshold that means the White House will give an official response. Of those, 162 e-petitions have received a response, which results in an 80.6% clear rate. 2.1 million users have received a response to their e-petition, a 38.8% response rate. The remaining 3 million or so users are either awaiting a response or signed on to petitions that didn’t meet the threshold. Responding to the growth in user base that has come with more attention, the White House raised the threshold for an official response today. In a blog post at WhiteHouse.gov, White House digital director Macon Phillips talked about the change:

When we first raised the threshold — from 5,000 to 25,000 — we called it “a good problem to have.” Turns out that “good problem” is only getting better, so we’re making another adjustment to ensure we’re able to continue to give the most popular ideas the time they deserve.

Starting today, as we move into a second term, petitions must receive 100,000 signatures in 30 days in order to receive an official response from the Obama Administration. This new threshold applies only to petitions created from this point forward and is not retroactively applied to ones that already exist.

In the last two months of 2012, use of We the People more than doubled. In just that time roughly 2.4 million new users joined the system, 73,000 petitions were created and 4.9 million signatures were registered.

The most signatures on a single petition to date (319,782 and counting) are on one that remains open, asking the administration to declare the Westboro Baptist Church a hate group, followed by two other related petitions. Other popular petitions remain open, from one to recount the election, one to support the release of standards for labeling genetically modified food and one to require free access over the Internet to scientific journal articles arising from taxpayer-funded research.

It isn’t an accident that there’s a wide variety of causes and issues on We The People. The White House made a notable design choice when it left the platform open to any petition, instead of constraining it. It was also a politically risky one given the potentially unwelcome distraction in an election year. Yes, that resulted in less serious outcomes, like a petition to build a Death Star, or edgy ones, like secession, but it also enables the people to petition their government about issues that don’t fall into pre-selected buckets, talking points or lobbying areas.

Given that the platform is in part aimed at creating more participation in government, it would be fair to judge that aspect of We The People a qualified success. On other counts, the effort is more of a mixed success. Open government advocate Jim Snider, who has been critical of the democratic function of the platform, has made other specific suggestions for ways that Congress could improve We the People, from verification of identity to standardized data to a deadline for an official written response from the head of the relevant federal agency.

There are several other ways the platform could be improved, which is always true if you think of open government being in beta. (That’s particularly true architects are improving a given government platform using citizen feedback). Once again, the White House is releasing a snapshot of data about the nature and growth of the platforms use but isn’t sharing open data about the Web analytics behind We The People as it changes. It would be useful to have more than twice yearly check-ins on use and to be able to see how long petitions have been open or how quickly they’ve passed a threshold. Micah Sifry made even more significant suggestions for how We the People could help form a more perfect union in November, recommending that the petitions be used to enable signers to talk more to one another, not just the White House.

Last August, the White House open sourced We The People on Github. If more civic coders get involved in “hacking the government, some of the improvements might come sooner rather than later. While the code hasn’t been repurposed by another national government yet, In the months since, they’ve continued to work on an API that would allow other petition services, like Avaaz, Change.org, 38 Degrees or SignOn, to tie into it. Phillips referred to this work today:

It’s wonderful to see so many people using We the People to add their voices to important policy debates here in Washington and bring attention to issues that might not get the attention they deserve. This increasing adoption strengthens our resolve to build new features, including an API that would allow other popular online petition platforms to integrate with our official one.

Such an API could also allow integration into Facebook or other social networking services, which could expand the reach and power of e-petitions, particularly if networks of people can be activated to engage in offline actions, like phone calls, in-person visits, demonstrations or votes.

For more discussion of the pros and cons of online petitions, tune in to the episode of Kojo Nnamdi from earlier today, where I discussed We the People and other platforms with representatives of Change.org, MoveOn.org and a member of the Maryland House of Delegates.