« See Government in Action: U.S. House Advances Transparency with Video »

The U.S. House recently rolled out a redesigned website that features an entire live and on-demand video library, HouseLive.gov, to give citizens a “front-row seat in the U.S. House of Representatives chambers,” according to the feature story on the U.S. House website.

The launch of video portal marks a very exciting milestone in the government transparency movement at the federal level of government. Since Obama’s initial open government memorandum a few years ago, which sparked an open data movement across every branch of the federal government, and since the 112th U.S. Congress kicked off its first legislative session with a live webcast this earlier year, demands for open government continue to rise. However, the technology standards for achieving this goal are still being negotiated. When it comes to video and making legislative data accessible, Granicus is helping all levels of government increase transparency while delivering more value to the end-user. Check out our open government video features, they directly align with technology standards stipulated by the Sunlight Foundation.

I think the launch of Houselive.gov is a clear indicator that we’re going to see more and more congressional committees and federal agencies adopt online video as a core component of their transparency strategies—it’s affordable, easy to use, and valuable to online audiences. The U.S. House video initiative was spearheaded by the Office of the Clerk. They partnered with Granicus on this project, leveraging its Open Platform and Government Transparency Suite products, along with Granicus' API to build some additional exciting features for their congressional staff. They have been beta testing and getting feedback on the video for several months.

The key goal of the project was to maximize transparency by ensuring constituents have the tools to see government in action quickly, conveniently, and comprehensively. With the new Houselive.gov page, the public can watch the most recent audio and video Floor Proceedings live, on-demand, or from their mobile devices.  They can also search across the video and summary text by spoken word back to January 2009—enabling you to find precise decisions or topical debates. Using basic keyword search or advanced search filters, citizens can follow bills or topics such as “tax cuts” or “health care” with greater ease than before. Also, users can even configure “custom” RSS feeds to get alerts when content addressing a particular topic has been published.

Here’s an overview of the other key features of their new streaming video technology:

Resources:

• Get more information about Granicus Solutions for Federal Government
• Request a demo of the technology being used by the U.S. House of Representatives