Maine.gov Wins Seventh National Best of the Web Award
On behalf of the State of Maine, Chief Information Officer Dick Thompson recently accepted the second place 2007 Best of the Web Award for the Maine State Web Portal, www.Maine.gov. The Maine.gov portal has been an award winner seven times in this prestigious national competition, in every year of eligibility since 2000, more than any other state government portal.
“We are very pleased and honored to receive a top ranking in this competition again this year. Our goal for Maine.gov is to provide innovations that make interacting with state government as easy and efficient as possible,” Governor Baldacci said. “This award shows us that we are achieving that goal while providing an economical and useful service to the citizens of Maine.”
The Center for Digital Government, an international research and advisory institute on the use of information technology in government, conducted the 2007 Best of the Web competition. Now in its 11th year, Best of the Web evaluates government Web sites based on their innovation, Web-based delivery of public services, efficiency, economy and functionality. Representatives from the Center for Digital Government, state and local leaders from around the country, and officials from the 2006 Best of the Web first-place winning state served as judges for the 2007 competition.
This year, several new features were added to Maine.gov, including interactive maps of key government offices and locations, an enhanced one-stop resource for state agency contact information and language translation features, which will translate any Maine.gov page into French or Spanish.
In addition, Maine.gov provides access to more than 350 online government services that allow citizens and businesses to take care of government payments, filings, renewals, permits and other transactions over the Internet. Popular online services include vehicle registration renewal, professional license renewal, hunting and fishing licenses, driver’s license renewal and replacement, traffic ticket payments and business tax registration. Other fun and useful features of Maine.gov include seasonal photo contests, citizen alerts and other e-mail notifications, news, RSS feeds and a mobile version of Maine.gov for cell phones.
“In this day and age when state budgets are tight, Maine.gov provides a cost-effective way to meet the public demand for convenient government transactions,” said Dick Thompson, State CIO. “We are proud to lead the nation in offering a user-friendly and innovative portal, and the continued recognition by the Center shows that you don’t have to be a large state to deliver effective eGovernment services.”
Since 2000, the Maine.gov Web portal has served as the online gateway to Maine state and municipal government information and services. Public usage of Maine.gov has grown tremendously; the site now receives more than 4 million page views per month and provides access to more than 250,000 state government Web pages.
The Maine.gov portal was also recognized earlier this year with a third-place ranking among state government Web sites by the Brown University’s Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions.
About Maine.gov
Maine.gov is the official Web site of the State of Maine (www.Maine.gov) and a service of the Information Resource of Maine (InforME). InforME is a collaborative effort between the State of Maine and Maine Information Network, LLC. Maine Information Network is the official eGovernment solutions partner for the State of Maine. The company builds and manages interactive government services on behalf of the state and is a wholly owned subsidiary of eGovernment firm NIC (NASDAQ: EGov).
