Agora is “an online townhall for all”. From the website: What is Agora? loudspeaker for citizens agora gives ordinary citizens a voice to speak up and ask questions town common for communities agora offers a common space for communities to discuss what matters platform for collaboration agora crowd-sources ideas from citizens and help governments listen and “join the ongoing conversation with your community and representatives about what should be done”. As of 2016, Agora Town Hall is no longer available according to the message on this webpage . An archived copy of the Agora Town Hall tool can be found here .
Tools (5)
From the FAQ : CrowdHall is an online venue that lets you easily host interactive town halls with your audience. […] CrowdHall is based out of Las Vegas, NV ( USA ).
Crowdsourcing system hosted on Microsoft Azure. From the tool’s introduction announcement : Today at the Politics Online Conference in Washington, D.C. Microsoft launched TownHall, a new Windows Azure-hosted engagement platform that fosters, moderates and houses conversations between groups. As you may have seen on today’s Microsoft on the Issues blog, TownHall is an ideal tool for politicians and other public officials (among others) who want to host online social experiences that drive richer discussion around top interests and concerns with the American public. Think of TownHall as software that allows you to easily create a destination for folks to voice opinions, identify problems, offer solutions and come together around common interests and concerns. It is also a place to ask questions, where the most popular or relevant questions bubble to the top, so all can quickly see timely topics at any given moment. It does this by letting the community decide what’s relevant, allowing folks to ‘vote up’ questions that they would like to have answered or ‘vote down’ questions that don’t interest them. From a Microsoft Developer blog post in the “Enabling Digital Society” series: TownHall features a user-friendly, lightweight interface that is optimized for the collection of data, which is stored in Microsoft SQL Azure. From there, you can pull the data into a number of existing and familiar tools, including Microsoft Office Excel®. TownHall is available as downloadable source code that is customizable for your specific requirements. To increase participation, TownHall is equipped with a user reputation system, which allows individuals to earn points and badges for their contributions to the community. There are several approaches to earning points. Organizations can “rally the troops” by tailoring TownHall to accommodate various scenarios, including rewarding offline activities. Additionally, users can access a number of discussion topics where they can ask questions, vote on questions (agreeing or disagreeing that the question should be answered), and view questions and their tags. For more information on Microsoft TownHall, view the below embedded video: Update : Microsoft TownHall has been discontinued. In order to access the website, view an archived copy .
Open Town Hall is a cloud-based online citizen engagement platform administered by Peak Democracy . Peak Democracy’s software aims to increase participation and broaden public trust in government through online public comment forums “that are civil yet meet government freedom-of-speech and transparency laws.” From GovFresh : People visit the online public comment forums, learn more about the topics, read and support other perspectives, as well as post their own public comments. In addition to handling all IT requirements, Peak Democracy’s software and staff monitor comments to maintain civility, authenticate participants to prevent fraud, and provide end-user support. Government leaders can read the responses and synthesize voluminous feedback using Open Town Hall’s analysis tools. The forums can be archived for public records retention, and printed for distribution at community meetings. In October 2017, Peak Democracy was acquired by OpenGov . Peak Democracy was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Berkeley, California. Follow @peakdemocracy on Twitter for updates.
From the website: Tele-Town Hall has developed patent-pending technology that allows users to connect LIVE with thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of households through an interactive town hall meeting conducted over the telephone at the touch of a button. Audience members are invited to participate in an open discussion forum, pose questions LIVE to the Speaker, and respond in real-time to polling questions without having to leave the comfort of their own homes.