An undelivered campaign promise: You2gov
I had hopes for You2gov.org--the press release promised "instant communication with lawmakers that billion dollar corporations, trade groups, and big unions enjoy"--but like a lot of campaign promises, You2gov has a way to go.
The idea--the ability to send e-mail or Skype call your elected congressman with a click, catch up with the latest political feeds from various news orgs, and do the social thing--is good, but the execution so far is poor. When I tried to send one of my senators an e-mail, I got a cryptic error message. There are other flaws throughout the site as well.
Oops.
Hopefully, You2gov.org will work the bugs out of its system; if you need more political news right now, you're better off trying Politico.com or RealClearPolitics.com. If it's political/policy debate you crave, check out Essembly.com or RedBlueAmerica. And if you want to contact your congressman or senator put your tax dollars to work at USA.gov.
I'm a little confused... are you implying that politico et al never have site errors? Because I assure you, there's no such thing as an error-free internet site. Or that somehow you can suddenly skype from USA.gov? Because when I clicked through your link, I rather missed that option.
Personally? I'm willing to give a bit of leeway to a site that is trying to develop a tool that makes it easier for the average citizen to contact his/her representatives directly. Then again, I'm also fairly skeptical about the impact emailing my reps might actually have. Tell my why my email will get given any more precedence than Bob@aol.com's promise of mail order Russian brides or Mary@yahoo.com's complaint that aliens are responsible for the blight to her rosebushes and I might rely on something like USA.gov.
But surprisingly, your review makes me more inclined to go check out You2Gov.com - because at least they're trying to give me a voice. The other sites you mentioned are more of the internet echo-chamber and we've already seen how little that does to impact what's going on in Washington these days.
I think maybe you would've been better off contacting the site admin and letting him know that he needed to fix something so that your fellow countrymen wouldn't have the same issues than writing an article condemning it out of the gate.
Just my 2 cents.
LMP