The next administration appears to be fully embracing new technology for communications, continuing the habits employed to great success during the recent campaign.  Besides the transition website, which now has several news items as well as videos on transition activities, there will be weekly YouTube addresses by President-elect Obama.  Such addresses aren’t as new as they sound, as the President has given a weekly radio address for decades.  The addition of another media form for this material is both welcome and overdue.  And if the new administration is open to new uses of technology in its activity, I think it bodes well for the administration’s future engagement with technology policy.  The next test will be who the first Chief Technology Officer of the government will be and that position’s job description.

The campaign website is still active, but there is a legal barrier between political and governmental activities that prevents it from being used directly by the White House.  However, the Democratic National Committee will likely take advantage of its information and networking capacity.  But it is possible that change.gov is the precursor of an expanded whitehouse.gov, where press releases are the least of the public information made available to web browsers.  As there has been a struggle to make federal government activity easier to observe and review – both online and in print – I hope that the expanded web activity of the Executive Branch becomes a beachhead for spreading transparency and usability of government information.