Italia.IT rises from the ashes

As of h.15 circa of 16 July there is a new Italia.IT, emotionally impactful and linguistically lavish. At least that is what they are promising it will become by the time it reaches its full potential in October of this year.

Here’s hoping…

Drumroll please: the “New Italy” (oh-oh-oh it’s Magic)

Pomp and fanfare for the launch of the New image of the Italian brand – “magic Italy” – and without further waiting:

Some have called it “a Photoshop sampler” but I think it reminds me of a 1980s TV logo when everyone was just learning the power of computer graphics. Okay, maybe the early 90s to be generous.

Long live the genius of a true artist like Mirò.

New opportunities, Old reactions

Well, almost another year has passed by, and nothing seems to change…

The Public Administration just keeps on pumping out useless and illegal waste of public monies to slide in “under the deadline”.

“Damn the citizens, full speed ahead“. This time in the Lombardy Region.

(is that logo growing “fuzz” or do I need new glasses?)

Where to start?

The end, or a new chance to screw things up worse?

*Probe End: 2008-01-18 08:36:08 GMT
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*Probe End: 2008-01-18 08:41:09 GMT
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*Probe End: 2008-01-18 08:30:35 GMT
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These are the last signals of (non)life of italia.it, recorded by the site monitor already mentioned (Thanks Bruno!).

(Read more in Italian)

“Access Denied” to the documentation of Italia.it: a defeat for the Stanca IT Accessibility Law?

 

by Lorenzo Spallino – www.webimpossibile.net

The formal appeal of Scandaloitaliano requesting that the documentation regarding the bidding and contracts for the portal Italia.it be made available has been denied by the Commission for Access to Public Documents of the president of the Council of Ministers.

The reasoning applied by the Commission lays a grievous limitation on any possible objective analysis of the level of compliance of the Stanca law on accessibility of Information Technologies [first of which, web technologies; NdT], since it hinders any way of checking the conformity to article 4, which penalizes by nullifying the contracts which do not foresee compliance to the twenty-two technical requirements.

Read the rest (sorry, in Italian)

Letter to Romano Prodi, the Presidency of the Council of Ministers answers: checking of the correct working of the Public Administration is no concern of its citizenry

After the letter to Prodi, Rutelli and Nicolais signed by over 1500 citizens, many of whom design, web and multimedia professionals, in which a request was advanced for transparency in the public documents related to the Protal Italia.it, here, finally, a sign of life from the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.

Today, from the email address postacertificata.dit@palazzochigi.it we received the following PDF attachment with the answer:

Response to the Letter to Romano Prodi – DOWNLOAD PDF (in Italian)

It is comprised of two documents.

(read the rest in Italian)

Geography anyone?

It is sooo annoying that the Flash programmers that Italia.it employs do not have the least sense of geography or its conventions and use in the modern world.

Since when has Vicenza EVER been one step left (East) and three steps up (North) on any geographical mapping projection system?

Anyone that looked at the coordinates (much less has ever been anywhere near the Italian Northwest) would know that they are relatively close to the same Latitude (North-South position, geographically speaking) but over an hour’s travel apart in Longitude (East-West position, geographically speaking). Even the Italian State Railways, known worldwide for their inefficiency, horrible train-sign translations and generalized incompetency have gotten it better than the Italia.it programmers.

Please, get your act together!

Please note the mapping according to Saint Google deMap, the patron saint of mappers since medieval times:

Notice that the traditional North-South-East-West conventions give hardly any difference in the North-South relations between Venice and Vicenza, but create roughly a square between Vicenza and Parma, and that Parma correctly results South of both Venice and Vicenza (seeing as it is almost a degree of Latitude South of both, it is only natural and comprehensible that it be represented that way, or at least one would think…).

The (unforeseen) impact of Scandalo Italiano

Seems hard to believe, but if there had never been a Scandalo Italiano, there never would have been an Italia.it.

Convincing proof: from the time Scandalo Italiano has stopped charging ahead with observations, suggestions, corrections and comments, the site hasn’t gone ahead. Not an inch, or even a millimeter. The translations of the still-in-Italian interface pieces has remained faithfully in Italian.

The news, in nearly a month, has not been updated AT ALL!

The latest news item (at least in the English, Italian and German sections) goes back to April 5. In the Chinese section, it would appear (the dates show in arabic numerals, even if the rest of the text is mostly in Chinese which I don’t understand at all) to have stopped a few days earlier on April 2.

All I can say is: that is one heck of a long Easter vacation, even for a country which takes off an entire month of the Summer to eat gelato and sit under overpriced and ever increasingly expensive beach umbrellas in Coney-island style overcrowded beaches outside Rome whilst no work whatsoever is accomplished (except by the gelato-sellers and beach-umbrella-fee-collectors, of course).

Is it possible they have run out of money already? All the politicians kept saying that there were still tens of millions of euros left available.

At this point, if they don’t actually intend to kept correcting the omnipresent errors and difficulties for the (potential) visitors, maybe the naysayers that called for the closure of the site were the ones in the right.

The Government Speaks (funnynglish)

The Government Has Sent Down Word Of Its Answer

Yeah, well kinda.

It is curious, the choice of one particular English word they use…

… il Ministro Nicolais e il Vice Presidente Rutelli hanno deciso di procedere nel progetto, incentrato su una reale collaborazione con le Regioni e su un’ attività di promozione del sistema turistico italiano, che vedrà successivamente ampliate le aree dell’incoming e dell’informazione diretta.

Now is it just me, or does the word “IIINCOOOOMING!” in this case ring of war movies, where our heroes are being bombarded by shells left and right, and after a brief respite which is supposed to induce thoughts of the end of this attack and the resumption of the daily drag of military life in war, we hear the whistle of another, one last shell, which in Hollywood always mean that the nicest and most honest of the remaining soldiers is about to buy the big weekend pass in the sky…

I personally wonder what they are trying to say here.

Oh, and how long does it take the “Ministro per le Riforme e le Innovazioni nella Pubblica Amministrazione” to get off their “Sito temporaneo” and stand on their own two feet, and move onto something that they can rightfully claim their own, and for which they are willing to take responsibility? Mah?

(update)

at least this time it hasn’t taken as long for others to notice:
Quando la montagna partorisce un topolino (in Italian) – Michele Cassone
Italia.it, il Governo rispond (in Italian) – Punto Informatico

Italia.it: Brief synthesis

Originally posted (in Italian) March 22

For the benefit of the “newbies”, a brief synthesis of the whole story:

On March 16, 2004 the then government, presided by Silvio Berlusconi, within the “Fund for financing of strategic projects in the IT sector”, passes the “Choose Italy” project.
The project proposes to relaunch the Italian tourism industry in the world and as a central issue of this action it requires the realization of a web portal on the Internet:
www.italia.it. Please note that tourism in our Country is a fundamental business and that it contributes for about 12% to our GDP.
The actual total cost of this operation is still a mystery: what is certain, though, is how on the whole, through several legislative measures, 45 + 9 million euros (more than 100.000 million old liras) have been in time set apart for this use.

The operational management of the project is delegated to a public company that answers to the Presidency of the Council, Innovazione Italia (Sviluppo Italia Group) that proclaims a European tender with a restricted procedure.
On 4th July 2005 the bidding is won by a temporary consortium of companies comprising IBM, ITS and Tiscover for 7.850.000 euros + VAT (about 18.000 million old liras).
Within three months the web portal should be on-line and offer a national booking platform and a first series of contents.

Further measures of the then Minister of Innovation and Technologies Lucio Stanca establish the management of the project involving, in various roles, ministers and Regions.

On 11th April 2006 the government changes (Prodi), but the web portal is still not on-line; the jurisdiction over tourism matters goes to Vice President and Minister Francesco Rutelli, the one over technological innovation to Minister Luigi Nicolais. Some changes in the management of the italia.it project take place and explicit authority is given in order to make the portal and the new logo iT presentable for the 22nd February 2007 BIT (Italian Tourism Exchange).

On 22nd February the web portal is put on-line and it causes a sensational wave of criticism and complaints from the whole web world: the reasons are different and, let’s say it, all well-grounded and undisputable.
Minister Rutelli asks for a further year’s time “to improve” and involve at last and effectively the Regions, which, according to our Constitution, have full competence in the tourism issue.

It’s a shame that in July 2007 the contract expires and the web portal is what it is. “the project has so far required about 6 million euros for its proof of concept project and its first online version, but 35 million euros are still available, partly destined to the Regions for the implementation of regional portals and for the organisation of the central and external editorial teams, partly destined to the activities of completion, promotion and commercialisation of the contents.”

This way we’ve been pilloried for a month in the eyes of the public!

It’s a total folly, a webmonster, an unacceptable waste of public money that just cries out for vengeance.