The city of Seattle today rolled out an overhaul of its primary website, Seattle.gov, with a new look and a streamlined structure that city officials hope will make it easier to find key information. The redesign also puts a heavier emphasis on social media, pointing to the city's blogs, Facebook, Twitter etc.

Some key stats from the city's news release on the redesign: The site was streamlined from nine main portals to five: Business in Seattle, Living in Seattle, Visiting Seattle, City Services, and City Departments. There are 23 percent fewer links on the homepage, but the redesign makes the most popular services easier to find.

Bill Schrier, the city's chief technology officer, told reporters at a media briefing this morning that the overhaul cost the city less than $5,000 in spending on outside resources, although the city's internal staff spent a considerable amount of time on the project on top of that. (I watched the briefing via webcast on the site.) Schrier told me afterward that the site is based on Microsoft's .NET technologies.

Several local tech firms participated in the project. The changes were based in part on a usability study by the nonprofit Knowledge as Power. Seattle startup Tippr.com provided $500 in credits to compensate usability study participants. The calendars on the site are powered by technology from Seattle-based Trumba.

Seattle Councilmember Bruce Harrellwho chairs the Energy, Technology and Civil Rights Committee, called the overhaul of the site key to his top 10 tech initiatives for 2010 for the city.

Here are before-and-after thumbnails of the Seattle.gov site.