You wait ages for an easy way to search federal awards data and then two come along at once! Well, almost. The folks who currently support the Federal Procurement Data System — Next Generation (known as FPDS-NG) have launched a competitor site to OMB Watch’s FedSpending.org, and they’re calling it FFATA.org (cheeky!).

As FCW reports, Global Computer Enterprises (GCE) has launched FFATA.org based on the data already in FPDS-NG, with additions of grant awards data. I’ve just done a couple of quick searches and the results seem fine but somewhat less user-friendly than at FedSpending.org. Your mileage may vary, though, so give it a whirl! 

We’re still awaiting word, of course, on who will get the contract to build FederalSpending.gov, the government’s own site that will meet the FFATA requirements. Maybe it’ll be GCE, maybe it’ll be the folks supporting OMB Watch. GCE has definitely shown that they can produce a viable site, though — and demonstrating that very thing was a pre-requisite in the RFP for FederalSpending.gov.