Wahi Media has been featured in the news as a top social media tool for government agencies.

Smarter Technology, a popular website dedicated to technological innovation, has conducted a nationwide search to find companies that provide innovative technology to help government better serve taxpayers (and save taxpayer dollars.)

The site has chosen Wahi as one of the top four latest innovations helping officials embrace a more open and interactive federal government.  Highlighted for its successful gang-prevention videos, Wahi is being utilized by government officials to improve the quality of life for both present and reformed gang members and concerned citizens.

Government agencies are also turning to other technologies including Spigit for Government, readMedia and RightNow Cloud Monitor to stay abreast of the current trends.

Click here to read the full article, and don’t forget to leave a comment! We’d love to hear what you think. Excerpt below.

Government Going All A-Twitter?

By: Dennis McCafferty
March 2010

Say goodbye to the stereotype of the stodgy bureaucrat. Government agency managers now are getting totally “with it” when it comes to using social media tools to provide better services to taxpayers.

For government bureaucrats, a casual conversation often involves terms such as “request for proposal,” “government-wide acquisition strategy” and “protocols for enterprise management procurement.”

In other words, not exactly the kind of chat that would win you any points at a singles bar. So it’s difficult to believe that these agency managers are now embracing the same popular social-media tech tools that are all the rage on the Web these days.

But that’s exactly what’s happening. Thanks in part to President Obama’s call for a more interactive and open federal government, and the greater inclination of localities and states to embrace the inevitable, agencies are now using Facebook, Twitter and other social media tools to better connect to citizens. Here are some notable examples:

…

  • Tallahassee, Fla.-based Wahi Media has introduced a video-based social media online platform in which Tampa Bay police officers, educators and other active community members are interacting with gang members online to get a sense of how these members get recruited so as to come up with better ways to execute early intervention. Because the interaction is one-on-one, face-to-face (virtually, at least), police officers are able to hold the attention of a gang member longer (as much as 8 to 10 minutes at a time), unlike traditional social media outlets where users quickly click from one conversation to another. So far, more than 5,000 one-on-one conversations have been conducted with gang members. Other Wahi clients include police departments for Atlanta and Tallahassee.

…