Citilab reports on the new portal of the Calanonian parliament which was inaugurated this week:

“The Parliament has begun a new website which represents an advance in the construction of a different type of politics. Parlament 2.0 is a catalogue of tools and initiatives which favour dialogue between citizens and politicians, and between the Parliament and the public.

A Virtual tour
The new website of the Parliament of Catalonia integrates YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Netvibes amongst other things:

— The YouTube channel of the Parliament which contains parliamentary sessions, interviews, events and reports, and complements the Parlament Channel
— Parlament on Facebook
— Like the UK Parliament, the Catalonian Parliament has an account on Twitter which makes it possible to get updates on the webpage, mobile, Messenger or in Twitter itself. At TweetParlament it is possible to follow the tweets of MPs.
— Each user can personalise the Parliament homepage according on their interests
— The site offers a number of widgets such as iGoogle or Netvibes which can be embedded in webpages or blogs
— syndication mechanisms and syndication tools
— Facilitates queries by the public directed at the President of the Parliament, citizens or services of the Parliament
— The educational activities of Parliament have also been developed in an active way. In the the 2.0area teachers and students can access the moodle tools which have been created by the Chamber
— The portal includes Google Translate so that the official language of Catalan can be translated to that chosen by the user”

Read the full post here – English, Castellano, Català

The new initiave recieved a lot of publicity  throughout Spain, including a report from El Pais which seemed to indicate displeasure at the ability of the public and the parliament to communicate without the press as an intermediary.