• UK | Wikileaks' war records: the datajournalism perspective
  The Wikileaks disclosure of Afghanistan war records has been frontpage news in the last two days. It was not only about journalism, but also about datajournalism
  The three newspapers that broke the story had less than a month to choose how to publish the data: how to choose? How they did it?
  Here's what was the process at The Guardian:

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• EU | "You can offer a policy expert a bridge, but you can’t make him cross it."
  More on the debate on the role of eurobloggers in (possibly) shaping policy: Ralf Grahn comments on Mathew Lowry's post on building bridges outwards:

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• Ireland | MerrionStreet.ie: the government news service goes live - but not for citizens
  The Irish government has recently launched MerrionStreet.ie (named after the Dublin street on which Government Buildings is located), "the Irish government news service".
  The website is aimed at creating a new approach in communicating with citizens and based on the WordPress Open Source software platform. In an interview to Silicon Republic, the team behind the website even cited Number10.gov.uk as a particular inspiration for MerrionStreet.
  But Richard Fahey is not convinced that they are on the right track already: in a long and detailed post, he reviews the social media strategy of the government website, comparing it with those of UK and US.

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• EU | Eurobloggers and EU policy: how to build bridges
  A couple of weeks ago on Public affairs 2.0 blog, Steffen explained the possibile influence of new voices in the EU, defining eurobloggers and policy bloggers and the intersection of the two groups. After all the conversations that followed the launch event of the Brussels Blogger Study, Mathew Lowry reflects on whether the lack of specialists in EU-oriented blogs is impeding the development of the European online public space.

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• EU | The Brussels Blogger Study
  Brussels based PR company Waggener Edstrom has recently published a study on the EU blogosphere, called the Brussels Blogger Study (here available - but not downloadable). Many eurobloggers attended the launch event of the report (you can see all the Twitter reaction with the hash tag: #bbs10) [edit: as it was pointed out, almost all of them attended the event via Twitter, after Jon Worth - who was actually there - started tweeting. And he precised: "Odd then that I heard about the event via other bloggers, and had to invite myself to attend"]. But many of them weren’t convinced with the criteria that were used to determine influence and ranking.

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Personal Democracy Forum is coming to Europe again in 2010.

With Europe wrestling with the economic downturn and changes in ruling coalitions in several major countries, the time is ripe to explore how citizens and governments alike are using new interactive communications technologies to address critical problems and do more with less.

PdF EU 2010 will be held on October 4-5 at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, one of the great cultural centres of Barcelona.

In the coming weeks we will be announcing more information, including an impressive lists of speakers and full agenda. 

The registration is open and you can save 50 euros off the regular admission price by registering today (and for a limited time).
Save the date and see you in Barcelona!

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• UK | iPhone apps or no iPhone apps? That is the question...
  A couple of weeks ago the British government started reviewing its 820 websites as part of a bigger plan of efficiency in the Public Administration. As it turned out from a BBC Freedom of Information request, a big expense (£10,000 - £40,000) is related to the development of iPhone applications.

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• EU | Social media going local... on a European level?
  It may sound strange but it is how they may be used, according to Antonia Mochan, Head of Media of The European Commission Representation in the UK.
  In a long interview, Mochan tells the folks at Waltzing Matilda about about how she uses social media in her job and how they fit in the Commission’s news cycle:

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• EU | EU Commission launches public consultation on net neutrality
  

  The debate on net neutrality has grown in intensity over recent months – we will respond with a Commission communication after hearing your perspectives and hosting a summit with the European Parliament.
  
  The process will be as open as the internet! As already made clear, I will not support any public policy that may threaten freedom of expression. I am committed to an open and efficient internet where freedom can flourish. And I have also underlined that I am keen to promote transparency, innovation, fair competition and investment in new efficient and open networks.

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• UK | Digital engagement, where art thou?
  

  I don’t like the phrase ‘Government 2.0′ much, so the something bigger hopefully isn’t that. I quite like ‘Open Government’, and digital engagement is part of that, as is open data and general increases in transparency from government.

  A few weeks after the UK election, Dave Briggs wonders what is the place of digital engagement in times of austerity.

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• UK |  The open spending data that isn't
  Some weeks ago the government coalition made an announcement aimed at improving local gov: councils would have to publish all spending over £500 by January next year.
  This raised quite some excitement in the open data and transparency community.

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• UK | "...and free us from unnecessary laws"
  After Prime Minister Cameron's Spending Challenge, Deputy PM Nick Clegg has just launched "Your freedom", a website that addresses citizens, asking them suggestions for abolishing pointless and excessive rules and laws.

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• UK | The UK Spending Challenge: the open source approach

Are you taking part to the spending challenge launched by the UK government?
Richard Fahey analyzes the initiative in depth, comparing the initiative to the Obama Administration’s SAVE Award, a competition that was so successful (over 38.000 ideas were submitted) that it has been turned into an annual event.
Then Fahey points out the importance of "the open source approach" to cut unnecessary spending:

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• UK | The Emergency budget: If you had to, what would you cut?
  Last Tuesday Chancellor George Osborne delivered his first budget speech with detail on how he plans to cut the budget deficit. "The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that cuts in spending and increases in taxes adding up to £74bn a year are needed to reduce government borrowing to the level it was at before the financial crisis." reports BBC, launching a tool that allows its readers to create their own Emergency Budget.
  But it seems like citizens will have the chance to express their opinion - or so it seems:

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[We are getting suggestions from our readers about interesting initiatives and speakers for the PDF Europe conference. Thank you all.]

• EU | The European Commission Youtube channel...and a strange brand association
  EUtube is the Youtube channel of the European Commission, providing instructive and sometimes funny videos on many issues and EU initiatives, with a pretty innovative attitude.
  For example, watch the funny "Chemical party":

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• EU | What happens when the Euroblogger becomes a reporter...
  

  When the Euroblogger enters unknown territory, she or he doesn't know whether he or she is walking into a gold mine or a mine field - and my participation at the EPP Summit ahead of the June European Council meeting was such a move into unknown territory.

  Euroblogger Julien Frisch was invited to follow the European People's party summit and liveblogged the event. Frisch had previously been active part in the debate on whether bloggers should get accreditation to EU institutions (a topic we explored on our blog, too) and has a lot of interesting reflections, an exploration on the differences between blogging and journalism and how both of them can look at the EU work and tell people about that:

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Today we have a special feature insted of our usual roundup, thanks to our readers. 
Some weeks ago, one of our readers, Idoia Llano, suggested to bring writer and historian Paul Ginsborg to our next European conference. 
Anna Bellorbì, a researcher of Fundaciò Catalunya Europa (also a PdF Europe sponsor), looked into Ginsborg's new book, focused on democracy and populism, and provided this interesting summary. 
What do you think? What are the speakers that you would like to see at PdF Europe 2010? 
We'd love to hear from you.

The use of Internet in politics is creating a new paradigm in society: is there more democracy thanks to the use of new technologies? How much impact can have risks such as manipulation and populism?

Paul Ginsborg, Professor of European History at the University of Florence and author of Así no podemos seguir (Spanish for "We can't go on like this"), explains how politicians usually try to manage democracy - and its lack.
First of all, Ginsborg cites the "rhetoric of participation", used by every party when it claims to be "the party that listens to the people" and asks credit for that.
He then lists three models:

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• Italy | Wikicrazia: public policies and online collaboration... in action!
  PDF Europe speaker Alberto Cottica proposes an interesting experiment of web collaboration: next September he will publish a book called "Wikicrazia", exploring how public policies can be shaped and changed by the web and the new ways of online collaboration. At the beginning of June he has published the last draft of the book, asking for comments and creating a debate on the different topics he dealt with in the book.
  Every week Cottica is  publishing a post, analyzing the contributions of his readers and sharing how they helped him writing a better book: so far he received 98 (very detailed) comments.
  The experiment will continue until the end of the month, so - if you understand Italian - become a "wikicratico" and help him!

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• EU | Should bloggers get accreditation to EU institutions?
  Last March, the International Press Association expressed concern about the shrinking presence of European media in Brussels: it's recent news that there are now only 752 journalists with accreditation compared with 1,300 back in 2005. This created a debate on whether the accreditations should be extended to eurobloggers, lots of whom are already covering EU issues with competence, but lack access to documents and databases.
  Has the "eternal" question "bloggers VS. journalists" made it to the EU institutions, too? The situation might be a little different.

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During PdF 2010, one of the afternoon session featured "The best of European tech politics".
Here's a summary and some reflections written by the moderator, PDF friend and speaker Jon Worth.

If you’re a United States internet politics person visiting Europe all you have to do is speak about the 2008 Presidential campaign run by Barack Obama and you’ll have the audience falling over themselves. We want some of that! The logos, the brand, the halo-like image behind Barack’s head at barackobama.com, the candidate who did it online. Let some of the gold dust rub off on us, the Europeans!

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