Well, in my last post I mentioned the revamped Whitehouse.gov.

Well, with today’s signing of the Stimulus package, Recovery.gov is now live (I checked late last week and there was only a placeholder saying it will become live once President Obama signs the bill).

Whether or not you agree with the bill, what’s most impressive is the purpose of the site and its regard towards all the monies that will be spent:

This is your money. You have a right to know where it’s going and how it’s being spent. Learn what steps we’re taking to ensure you can track our progress every step of the way.

To me, that’s speaks volume: the government is respectful of those being governed.

The Role of the Web in our President-Elect

I must say that when I wrote my Locke and Demosthenes post, I would never have thought that Barack Obama was actually ahead of the curve — just shows how in touch I am, eh?

Here’s one of the recent articles on the use of Web 2.0 and the 2008 elections:

Social Networking used in the 2008 Presidential Campaign

The fact that the 2008 Presidential Election had one of the larger voter turnout in a while suggests:

• the state of the economy got people out of their seats to vote
• the majority of voters wanted change
• the Obama campaign made better use of Web 2.0 social networking tools

I also read that Obama made great use of Facebook, and used Twitter, and his campaign warchest was in no small part due to small, but numerous, donations made be everyday people.

Obama’s website

Obama even has his own Flickr photostream

Post Election

Witness, already one immediate result from the President-Elect:

www.change.gov – a website that allows us to see the transition from the Bush administration to the Obama administration

Apparently, Obama (along with Republican Tom Coburn) pushed for government transparency in its spending back in 2005, and the result is this:

www.usaspending.gov

There seems to be a lot of excitement in the air regarding our new President-Elect. While Obama was not the first politician to make use of the web, the general consensus is that he’s the first to make good use of it, to know how to take advantage of the new medium, similar to how JFK knew how to use network television to his advantage when he was campaigning against Richard Nixon.

Anyway, I do have hopes that Obama will affect positive changes. It will be interesting to see how things play out, and what kind of role the web will play in the new administration.