Adam Ostrow writes for Mashable: Politicians have been taking to social media of late, from tweeting governators to YouTube Presidents. But for the thousands of staffers that work on Capitol Hill for members of Congress, social media is about a lot more than PR – they actually need to get things done. However, they’ve been fairly limited in this respect to-date, as there has been no “LinkedIn for Congress” per se.
That’s changing later this year though, as the influential National Journal plans to launch a social network of sorts exclusive to those with house.gov or senate.gov email addresses. The site aims to solve a few big needs of Capitol Hill employees, most notably establishing a secure online directory of staffers, giving them communication tools, and then letting them collaborate with each other.
The site – which will be called 3121 (which is actually the phone extension of the Capitol switchboard) – is in private beta for now, but will ultimately serve an audience of up to around 10,000. We got a sneak peek of a few of the features, and in summary, the analogy to LinkedIn (LinkedIn) is probably most apt.
3121 will be pre-populated with basic biographical and job information for many employees (think aides, advisors, policy directors, etc), but then let users claim their profile and keep it updated. That information will be searchable, and users will be able to connect with eachother to establish a network on the site. Based on your connections, 3121 will also recommend other members you should connect with by looking at things like mutual friendships, a feature you’re probably familiar with from LinkedIn or Facebook
07.20.09 
by Leslie Bradshaw
