ALBANY — The state Senate is unveiling a new Web site today that it hopes will get the public more involved in the legislative process.

The site will use many features used by popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and will incorporate what is known as "crowdsourcing."

The new Web presence, which includes sites for individual senators and pages for committees, is the brainchild of Andrew Hoppin, the Senate's chief information officer. Before joining the Senate staff, Hoppin helped create NASACoLab, a Web site that helps connect scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to collaborate with the outside community. He has also been involved with using technology to help grassroots political campaigns.

"We like to think of this as returning government to the people," Hoppin said. "They paid for it. This is citizens first."

The new site will be more interactive than the Senate's former Web site. There will be areas where people can comment on legislation, and where they can link content from individual senators' sites to their Facebook or Twitter pages.

"That's sort of a best practices for the social Web," Hoppin said.

The Senate site also will feature a full calendar of events for the very first time, and the sites of individual senators will have calendars, too, and more detailed district maps.

One of the most valuable features will be Senate committee pages, which will include streaming video from hearings. In the past, Hoppin said, only Capitol insiders could even find out when and where these hearings were held.

The "crowdsourcing" elements on the Senate Web site will allow people to rate legislative or policy ideas and comment on them.

"You harness the brain power of hundreds of thousands of people," Hoppin said.

The sites of individual senators are all designed the same, he added.

Apparently, when the Senate was under Republican leadership, senators from the Democratic side were not given the same online technology as Republicans, said Travis Proulx, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith.

"There wasn't any standard," Proulx said. "It was just a real problem."

New address

The new Senate Web site is located at http://www.nysenate.gov. Individual senators will get their own sites.