Steve Coll and New America Foundation are among those thinking about that. How can we really spur more marketplace innovation? How can government rules and ...

The long awaited Open Government Directive was launched at 11am this morning. No hoopla, just three passionate protagonists sitting in front of the White House equivalent of a webcam oozing enthusiasm for a policy change they clearly think is transformational.

You could be forgiven for wondering if issuing it with 12 hours notice and holding the interview 30 minutes before a speech by the President on the economy suggests it isn't thought important. My guess is that the White House thinks that for a directive that is most interesting to information geeks it's nigh on impossible to launch it to the big wide world without sounding nerdy. Launching it to the people that care (and do they care - Did you see that twitter and facecbook stream of questions!) is probably your best approach.

They want the public to focus on how government is better once it is launched. A laudable aim (more on that below) though my interest is more for signs that this might have an impact an democracy in our digital age than governmental efficiency.

It's the year 2015. The compact device in my hand delivers me the world, one news story at a time. I flip through my favorite papers and magazines, the images as crisp as in print, without a maddening wait for each page to load.

While many policy analysts have focused on the fate of the 700 MHz auctions, the digital TV transition, and the promise of white space devices, a more vast and underutilized resource has gone largely unnoticed: government spectrum. The best available data suggests that the majority of federal spectrum capacity is left unused. Strategic reuse of this spectrum could help obviate the need for significant additional reallocation while enabling a wide range of creative new uses and social benefits.