The White House web site will be the epicenter of a seismic change in the way democracy works in the USofA. Here the brains behind Change.Gov, Kevin Merritt, the CEO and founder of blist states just what to look for as Barack’s promise of transparency unfolds. There are links aplenty for the curious:
President Barack Obama was sworn into office this week as our nation?s 44th president. Despite running into a few technical challenges in the first few days at the White House, the Obama Administration will embrace technology in unprecedented ways. Led by forward thinking, web savvy technologists, President Obama?s new media team looks poised and ready to fulfill President Obama?s vision of open-source democracy.
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President Obama has vowed to continue video recording his fireside chats and publishing them via YouTube and other video sites. With the transition of WhiteHouse.gov to the new administration, for the first time ever an official White House blog came online. You can sign up for email updates from the president. Through the blog, Mr. Obama is the first U.S. president to have an RSS feed!
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The Obama Administration has been conducting bold experiments in interactive government. The Citizen?s Briefing Book, powered by Salesforce.com, has allowed citizens to suggest topics Mr. Obama should consider upon taking office. Once a topic was submitted, other visitors to the Citizen?s Briefing Book could vote the topic up or down and comment on it. Voting, ranking and commenting are hallmark features of web-based, social media applications.
The new Administration has brought forth a new era of honest, open, participatory and transparent government by creatively employing web-based software from innovative companies like Google, Facebook, Salesforce.com and blist. We?re eager to see the use of these technologies extended to WhiteHouse.gov initially and from there we?d love to see more government agencies quickly embrace web technologies to promote communication, transparency and participation.
