A new day for GovLoop

GovLoop founder Steve Ressler made headlines last week by selling his popular social-networking site to GovDelivery, a Minneapolis-based vendor that offers public communication services to government agencies.

Ressler had been managing the site, which has attracted 20,000 users in just 15 months, during evenings and weekends while holding a day job at the Homeland Security Department. Now GovLoop is his full-time job.

“Perhaps this government loss will also be a government gain, as Ressler will be able to devote both his day- and nighttime jobs to connect government employees to each other to improve government,” wrote Adelaide O'Brien, an analyst at market research firm IDC Government Insights.

But man-about-town and consultant Mark Amtower is somewhat skeptical, noting that the site was popular in part because it was managed by a government insider. “Now that it is no longer run by and for feds, it will lose much of the 'one of us' feel that it had,” he wrote in a comment posted on FCW’s story about the acquisition.