fmicciche@govexec.com
Federal officials expect the front door to e-government to swing open
within four months. And once it opens, they say, visitors will be able
to find the government information they're looking for in less than one
second.
According to the board of directors of FirstGov, the omnibus federal
web portal that President Clinton unveiled last week, users should be
able to access the site by October, only five months after Eric Brewer,
co-founder of internet search engine giant Inktomi Corp. first came
forward with the technology and funding necessary to get the project off
the ground.
"Eric Brewer is the key to getting this done," said GSA
Administrator and FirstGov board member David Barram at a press
conference Thursday. "There is no way to know how much longer this
would have taken if he did not step up."
Until Brewer's arrival on the scene in April, the Clinton
administration's effort to create a federal Web portal seemed to be
making little progress. The National Partnership for Reinventing
Government had announced plans for an all-inclusive federal site, to be
called WebGov, in August 1998. At the time, it was announced that GSA's
Government Information Xchange would serve as the primary search engine
for the site. Logistical and capacity questions dogged the initiative.
Enter Inktomi, which volunteered to construct a database containing
copies of the full-page text of the nearly 100 million government pages
currently online. Thanks to the technology Brewer developed under a
Defense Department grant at the University of California, and which made
him a multimillionaire by his 30th birthday, the database will be
capable of searching half a billion documents in less than one-quarter
second.
Barram cited Brewer's gratitude for the grant, and his interest in
sustaining a vibrant democracy, as the driving forces behind his
magnanimity. Beyond such lofty ideals, Brewer is also a founding member
of the NetCoalition, a group of nine of the most influential Internet
corporations that formed in order to lobby Congress and the executive
branch on pressing technology issues.
Denying speculation that the decision to scrap the WebGov name in
lieu of FirstGov signified that the original project was a failure,
Barram said the major reason for the change was that the board could not
purchase the domain name webgov.com. By comparison, the new site will be
accessible at FirstGov.gov, FirstGov.com, FirstGov.net and FirstGov.org.