Chopra vs. Kundra in online clout: Who's the champ?

Federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra is a newcomer to Twitter, but he is already surpassing federal CIO Vivek Kundra in a measure of online influence. Also, a new Apps against Abuse contest and GPO eBook update.

In just a week on Twitter, Federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra has gotten more clout than federal CIO Vivek Kundra, according to an analysis of their scores at Klout.com.

Chopra scored 51 on Klout.com as of July 13, while Kundra scored 48.

The Klout.com score ranges from 1 to 100, with 100 being the highest. It provides an index of the ability to affect dialogue and opinions online, based on several measures of fan activity on Twitter or Facebook, or both.

Chopra joined Twitter on July 6, and his Klout score almost immediately shot up to 51. He currently has about 1,100 followers on the site.

Kundra, who has more than 4,300 followers on Twitter, saw his Klout.com score drop in the recent weeks. It was over 50 several weeks ago, based on an examination of a Klout.com chart.

The falling score could be a reflection of Kundra’s imminent departure from the White House. Kundra recently announced he has accepted a post at Harvard University.

In other Gov 2.0 news, Vice President Joe Biden announced the “Apps Against Abuse” national competition July 13 to encourage developers to create tools to help young adults with protection against sexual assault and dating violence.

The contest is aimed at protecting young women aged 16-24, who experience the highest rates of rape and sexual assault.

The contest will offer incentives for creating applications that provide a means for the women to use mobile devices, such as iPhones or cell phone text messages, to check in with trusted friends and family members in real time, especially during at-risk situations.

The competition is sponsored by the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy and the Health and Human Services Department. Additional information is available at Challenge.gov.

In other news, the Government Printing Office said it has expanded its collection of e-books to more than 200 titles, in partnership with Google. The partnership was formed in 2010 to help convert government documents into e-books available at Google’s eBookstore.

However, a user might have trouble finding the 200 GPO titles in Google’s eBookstore. A search of the site for “GPO” came up with scores of e-books, but only one or two appeared to be from the GPO. A search for “U.S. Government Printing Office” was a bit better, turning up several e-books from the GPO, but again turned up many pages of unrelated e-books.

The search for “Books by the U.S. Government Printing Office” turned up five volumes, not 200. GPO officials were not immediately available to comment.