DCRA launched a new website last night, and like other agencies who have transferred to the fresh DC.gov template, it is a tremendous improvement. DCRA’s new site is part of the District of Columbia government’s new web template, designed to make agencies’ online presence simpler and easier to navigate. DDOT redesigned its website with this template back in February; DCRA is now the fourteenth agency to apply the upgrade. As someone who uses D.C….

From DCist’s RSS reader: Don’t feel too bad, WTOP web producers! Accidentally pushing “publish” happens to the best of us. Looks like the non-story already got pulled from the web site….

The District Department of Transportation on Thursday unveiled two different web sites designed to help them communicate better with the public. The first is a redesign of DDOT’s home page, which in addition to making the site more attractive and easier to navigate, also represents a glimpse into the future for the rest of the D.C. government: other redesigned departmental sites using this basic template are expected later this year. “We thought our [old]…

While you’re waiting out the next round of snow, take some time to check out TrackDC, a brand new government accountability web site launched by the District on Monday. It’s being billed as a place to find “numerous reports and datasets that allow site visitors to track government performance.” DCist hasn’t had a lot of time to sift through the data yet, but Clay Johnson at the Sunlight Foundation is very impressed.Both substance wise…

Click on over to www.washingtonpost.com/local to take a look at the new Washingtonpost.com ‘Local’ homepage, which launched in Beta at 4 p.m. this afternoon. Surprisingly enough, the design actually does look significantly different from the regular home page, a far cry from previous WaPo attempts to differentiate between the local and national editions of the paper by offering minor, barely noticeable differences for online readers with local IP addresses. Among the new features are…

If you’re a regular customer of Street Sense, D.C.’s only homeless newspaper, but have been frustrated over the years with its lackluster online offerings, be sure to check out the paper’s recently redesigned web site, StreetSense.org. (Full disclosure: I’m a volunteer member of the board of directors of Street Sense, and consulted just a little bit on the design process of this site). The new site, designed by CITI, offers regularly updated Street Sense…

Capitol Hill mainstays Bruce and Adele Robey have gone back to their internet roots with the recent launch of Hill-Talk, a Capitol Hill neighborhood-focused online news aggregator, discussion board and community calendar. The Robeys were the force behind the original Voice of the Hill newspaper, which began as a web site in 1999, later expanded to a monthly tabloid newspaper and eventually joined the Current Newspapers in 2005, when the Robeys sold it to…

The Examiner editorial staff is understandably outraged that the D.C. government appears to have blocked access to its web site on all city-owned computers. Given the ongoing tumult at the Office of the Chief Technology Officer, it’s certainly plausible that the news site has been blocked by OCTO (hopefully, by employee error—blocking a legit news web site on purpose would be an incredibly stupid policy). Without knowing any specifics though, we’d speculate first that…

Back in March we wrote about how the literary web site Hitotoki (pronounced hee toe toe key) was seeking submissions to launch a D.C. edition. Sadly it appears our post wasn’t enough to give the site enough momentum. Greg Lavallee, who was handling the submissions for the D.C. site, wrote to DCist today:It is with a heavy heart that I deliver news of Hitotoki D.C.’s demise. Unfortunately, we were unable to gather enough quality submissions…

Intern season is in full swing in Washington, and one local blogger has taken notice of just how many gross older dudes are hoping to hook up with them. The concept behind m4intern is simple: posting entire Craigslist ads, with links, that are expressly designed to lure young women in D.C. interning for the summer out for dates and sex. It’s not like you can’t find these on your own, but when someone is taking…