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GovDelivery Expands with GovInteract Acquisition

The two vendors provide government-to-citizen communication solutions.

Government-to-citizen communications solutions vendor GovDelivery announced Thursday, Jan. 5, its acquisition of GovInteract, a company that provides similar solutions to the public sector.

According to GovDelivery, GovInteract said it will continue to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of GovDelivery, which means GovInteract will keep its platform, existing services and its name.

GovDelivery’s corporate headquarters are in Saint Paul, Minn.; GovInteract is based in Nutley, N.J. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

GovDelivery specializes in Web-based notification and automation for all levels of government while GovInteract focuses on voice emergency alert notification as well as SMS text messaging for such emergencies.

GovDelivery will now be able to extend GovInteract’s voice notification emergency alerting capability, geographic targeting and ReverseDial capability to GovDelivery clients, said GovDelivery CEO Scott Burns.

“It’s that emergency notification functionality that will continue in the GovInteract platform like it always has and it will be added into our communications platform that our 400 [GovDelivery] clients use today,” Burns said.

Officials in Middletown, N.J., aren’t expecting many changes. The township serves nearly 70,000 residents and has contracted with GovInteract through a consulting firm for four years. Middletown IT Director Todd Costello said GovInteract’s notification capabilities are particularly helpful in emergency situations such as for evacuations, public health alerts and severe weather alerts.

“What [GovDelivery] did was by partnering with GovInteract they brought in ReverseDial and the ability to do online registrations — and bring our website live onto their platform.” GovDelivery will help bring GovInteract’s communication features into the limelight, Costello said.

In 2009, GovDelivery acquired social networking site GovLoop, a “Facebook for Government” that says it has more than 40,000 users from federal, state and local government.

 

Miriam Jones is a former chief copy editor of Government Technology, Governing, Public CIO and Emergency Management magazines.