GSA pulls the plug on GovGab; POGO meets POTUS

After a four-year run, the General Services Administration put the final nail in the coffin of its GovGab blog by shutting down its Twitter account today.

“This account is no longer active,” the GSA GovGab account tweeted around 1 pm today.

GovGab was created in 2007 to provide aggregated news items aimed at consumers from multiple federal agencies including NASA, USDA, Health and Human Services Department and the Federal Trade Commission.

The GSA shut down GovGab and folded its archives into the USA.gov Blog in February.

In a March 8 article, GovGab was given a “Dishonorable Mention” by Federal Computer Week’s Michael Hardy in a feature on federal blogs. While he described GovGab as “chatty and fun,” he said it lacked mission focus. “We’re not quite sure what its purpose is, but educating and informing people about GSA’s work doesn't seem to be part of it. Is this really a good use of public funds?” Hardy wrote.

In other news, Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, wrote a fascinating first-person account of her meeting at the Oval Office this week with President Barack Obama and other open government advocates.

Obama ushered in the group with a joke about making sure the visitors disclose all their names in the White House visitors’ log. But Brian goes on to have a serious discussion about whistleblower protections and describes her “dream moment” in her conversation with the chief executive.