Washington, D.C. – The Federal Communications Commission today launched a complete overhaul of the agency’s web site – FCC.gov. Now architected with a more intuitive user experience and the addition of Web 2.0 technologies, the new site improves and simplifies the FCC.gov experience for consumers, government, public safety agencies and the business community.  This is the first major update to the site in ten years.

The launch of the new site, available today at http://beta.fcc.gov and linked off the existing home page, marks a significant step forward in FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s initiatives to continuously improve and modernize the way the public  interacts with the Commission and the federal government.

Since Chairman Genachowski took office, the FCC has utilized Web 2.0 technologies – such as official agency blogs; multimedia and social media outlets; and opening the agency’s processes via online participation platforms — in reforming the agency.  This process has generated hundreds of thousands of  comments and interactions from across the country. The FCC’s new media team will continue updating the beta FCC.gov site throughout 2011 with the help of public input through the public engagement and participation features in the new FCC.gov, as well as the agency’s social media outlets.

“This FCC is empowering consumers and businesses to get the most out of technology,” said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “The launch of the new FCC.gov keeps us at the forefront of innovation, and delivers on our promise to move at the speed of high-tech change.”

The Commission’s new web site was shaped by public feedback and sharpened through an ongoing conversation with users over the past several months and represents the Commission’s first overhaul of its main web site in more than a decade.

FCC Managing Director Steven VanRoekel oversaw the technical development and innovation strategies for the new FCC.gov. His vision for the new site drove the deployment of the site’s cloud-hosted architecture, open source development, and embrace of leading design techniques drawn from leading consumer sites.

“Online innovators have built destinations that deliver outstanding experiences, high-quality products and great customer service,” said VanRoekel. “That’s what consumers and businesses expect online, and it’s what makes the web great. Traditionally, dot-govs have struggled to keep up with rapidly changing technology.

The Reimagined FCC.gov is proof that with the right tools and creative thinking, dot-govs can look, feel, and run like dot-coms.”

The new FCC.gov is built using web services – a series of standards employed across many of the Web’s most popular sites – which empowers citizen developers to build off the new FCC.gov in innovative ways. By building the new site using an open source, cloud-hosted, and scalable architecture, the FCC has leveraged modern tools as a long-term cost-saving strategy, lowering the barriers to future development and innovation among other public and private sector web sites.

Follow the FCC’s Managing Director Steven VanRoekel on Twitter at @stevenvfcc for updates about further improvement to FCC.gov.