Granicus, Inc. Introduces National Ranking of Government Webcasts

March 17, 2009

Metrics Track Progress in Government Openness and Accountability

San Francisco, CA – Today, Granicus, Inc., the nation’s leading provider of government transparency technology, announced its establishment of a national ranking of government webcasts. Granicus aggregates and tracks streaming media from its over 500 government agency clients that use its products and services to encode, manage, archive and distribute their public information online. Efforts like Granicus’s to open up government data to the public are a top priority for the Obama administration and especially relevant during this week’s celebration of freedom of information laws, National Sunshine Week.

“This is a landmark accomplishment for Granicus. It reaffirms our commitment to help government agencies adopt technology that delivers true transparency and that fosters more citizen awareness and empowerment,” says Tom Spengler, CEO and co-founder of Granicus, Inc. “Our technology enables agencies to maximize the accessibility and usefulness of their public information online. Our tools were built specifically to help governments provide information that’s complete, timely, and accessible.”

Over the past nine years, over 500 public agencies across 45 states have deployed a Granicus solution, resulting in the development of one of the largest networks of government legislative data online. This data includes audio/video public meeting recordings and digital public records – all archived, cross-linked, keyword searchable, and RSS-enabled. The collection of data has enabled Granicus to form a national ranking of webcast government content. The statistics are now publicly available on the Granicus website. It displays top ten lists covering five major areas: most archived webcasts, most webcasts created, most live-webcast viewers, most archived-webcast viewers, and most popular archived webcasts.

The top performers in each area demonstrate leadership due to their success in: 1) distributing a high number of public meetings and other government webcasts live and on-demand; 2) publishing content with depth and key-word searchability (meaning, the audio/video files are  integrated with other useful public information and searchable); 3) achieving high visibility and usage of this content among staff and constituents;  and 4) positioning this content in an accessible place on the agency’s website – in a timely and complete form.

The agencies listed in the ranking are leading contributors in the company’s effort to attain one million public meetings online by the end of President Obama’s term. This ambitious effort has been coined the “Drive to a Million” initiative. It’s Granicus’s pledge to support the new administration’s goal of creating unprecedented openness in government. Supporters are encouraged to watch the race unfold on the company’s website.  Granicus hopes more government agencies will join the “Drive to a Million” by putting more government webcasts and public records online. The initiative also aims to inspire more citizens to use the service to increase their awareness and participation with local, state, and national government decision-making.

“Underlying our ‘Drive to a Million’ is our dedication to helping governments increase the quantity, depth, and accessibility of their public information online with streaming media, archiving, and other distribution tools. The more information we can help agencies put online, the richer the environment we can create for transparency and citizen engagement,” adds Spengler.

About Granicus
Founded in 1999, San Francisco-based Granicus, Inc. helps government agencies build stronger connections with citizens. Public agencies trust our webcasting solutions to enable vital improvements to public access, staff efficiency, and government accountability. In addition, the combination of webcasting with public meeting management technology into a single workflow decreases administrative costs and simplifies public recordkeeping tasks. Visit www.granicus.com for more details.