Instapaper vs. Readability

Instapaper and Readability are two services that allow people to more easily "read" content on the web. You sign up for these services, and they give you a little bookmarklet to install on your browser. When you're reading an article you want to read later, you simply click on the bookmarklet and the content you want to read, is taken off of the website it's on, and put onto one of these organization's servers. Then it's available to you in a beautiful format wherever you want to read it.

The fundamental difference between these two services is how they are paid for. Instapaper is an application that you pay for on your mobile device. While it's free to use on the web, if you want to take your content with you on your iPhone or iPad, you've got to pay $5 for it. Readability on the other hand, asks for an optional subscription to go and support the service.

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How to Fix Government VI: Improve Government Culture

If I ever ran for governor, and wanted to stay governor indefinitely, then my first priority would be to revamp the department of motor vehicles. When people think of government, bureaucracy, and incompetence, I think what most are usually thinking about is their last experience at the DMV. It's one of those things that most people have to deal with at some point or another, and it's one of those things that always evokes a visceral response. Nothing says dread like "I have to go to the DMV"

So I'd revamp the department of motor vehicles so that the experience would be like going to a 5 star hotel. It'd be completely service oriented. I'd invest in advanced scheduling technology so that there would be no line. I'd invest in good architecture and aesthetics so that the DMV offices would look great and be comfortable. If I were governor, your trip to the DMV would be as easy and as pleasurable as a trip to the Apple Store. People would herald me. They'd say "our government is awesome! Check out our DMV!" and people wouldn't be able to buy the argument that government was incompetent or lazy.

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How to Fix Government V: Smarter Transparency

It's typical that governmental bodies release ethics related information, or information they don't think anybody will care about on Friday afternoon or even late evenings. So in honor of transparency's special time in the news cycle, I'm releasing my last post in the How To Fix Government series on smart transparency.

We need to get a grasp on what effective transparency looks like, and up our game -- both inside the government and outside, too. All too often, the claim is made that transparency alone is some kind of antidote to corruption and it isn't. It's a bizarre and cynical shortcut -- when a system needs regular monitoring and policing in order to stay honest, politicians say "we'll open it up to the public, so that everyone can see what's going on, and that will keep everyone honest."

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How to Fix Government IV: Real Time Procurement

To me, the most interesting undercurrent of the Obama administration is how we've had a bunch of very left-of-center campaign staffers go and work for the administration in some shape or another (I know mostly federal agency New Media Directors) and come out of their experience being a little more libertarian. The same thing happened to me as director of Sunlight Labs. While conservatives might argue that Obama is pushing America too far to the left, he's driving a lot of his progressive staff towards what I'd call traditional republican ideas.

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