Launching Apps.gov: Tools Safe Enough for Uncle Sam

Hacks.gov is only a matter of time, dontcha think? To be shortly followed by Microblogging.gov. And then Tunes.gov, a clearinghouse for DRM-cleared music that can serve as the soundtrack for government service...

Where were we? Oh yes. U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra announced in a speech this afternoon at NASA's Ames Research Center the launch of the new Apps.gov. In this case, the now ubiquitous short-hand "apps" refers simply to web-based or server-based software. What the new site adds to the mix is a one-stop shop for government innovators where they can pick up software that has been given an umbrella okay by the executive branch. Unlike the public-facing Data.gov, the audience for Apps.gov is almost entirely internal, but they share the same spirit -- centralize good and potentially powerful resources in one place in the hopes of stretching their utility.

Here's how Kundra explains the point and purpose of Apps.gov:

Apps.gov is an online storefront for federal agencies to quickly browse and purchase cloud-based IT services, for productivity, collaboration, and efficiency. Cloud computing is the next generation of IT in which data and applications will be housed centrally and accessible anywhere and anytime by a various devices (this is opposed to the current model where applications and most data is housed on individual devices). By consolidating available services, Apps.gov is a one-stop source for cloud services – an innovation that not only can change how IT operates, but also save taxpayer dollars in the process.

What Kundra is able to make possible, from his perch in the Office of Management and Budget, is the pre-clearing of software tools and applications to make it that much easier for those forward thinking folks in government to ramp up and run the applications as part of their mission. (Kundra has a habit of refering to anything network-based as residing in "the cloud." It's probably just as useful to think of them as, you know, accessible via the Internet or internal network.)

Kundra's partner in all this, GSA, acts as sort of the office manager of the federal government. What they're giving their allies in agencies and departments across the executive branch is the knowledge that the tools they are recommending have been pre-screened for security threats, legal entanglements, and other things that can get a well-intentioned public servant in trouble with his or her boss. The other thing they're giving away with the launch of Apps.gov: pre-negotiated agreements with contractors who are already set up to provide the services, all with a few clicks and a government purchase card.

Through Apps.gov, $114.91 gets government employees a copy of a Salesforce add-on to Google Apps, routed through a pre-approved contractor. Other free and web-based social tools are collected in one place, with GSA prepared to get each individual office up and running. Among the social tools gathered on the new Apps.gov site: WordPress for blogging and content management, SlideShare for sharing presentations, Scribd for posting documents, IdeaScale for collaboration -- plus all the basics, like Facebook, Flickr, MixedInk, Blip.tv, and YouTube.

The question remains, of course, whether anyone in government will actually take advantage of the streamlining of these tools and put them to work in their own office, agency, commission, or department. It's one thing to have GSA pre-clear an app for use. Getting your direct supervisor or her supervisor (or, perhaps more importantly, the lawyers down the hall) to sign off on your new agency blog is another matter, almost entirely. But having these tools described and sanctioned on a .gov website is a useful and necessary first step, and one Kundra and GSA deserve credit.gov for.