Serendipity35

Obama using his Blackberry.

I guess you've heard that President Obama is going to get to keep his Blackberry.

His first day in office got a big inauguration Internet start. Just look at the numbers released by only CNN on the day’s traffic. As of 3:30pm ET on that day: more than 136 million pageviews; more than 21.3 million live video streams; at its peak, CNN served 1.3 million concurrent live streams (this occurred immediately before Obama’s speech)

I looked back at a PEW Internet report from last year that asked what voters expected from an Obama administration. Some highlights:

• Voters expect that the level of public engagement they experienced with Barack Obama during the campaign, much of it occurring online, will continue into the early period of his new administration.
• A majority of Obama voters expect to carry on efforts to support his policies and try to persuade others to back his initiatives in the coming year;
• a substantial number expect to hear directly from Obama and his team;
• a notable cohort say they have followed the transition online.
• 62% of Obama voters expect that they will ask others to support the policies of the new administration over the next year.
• Among Obama voters who were engaged online during the campaign, 25% expect to support the administration’s agenda by reaching out to others online.
• Obama voters expect to hear directly from the administration — 34% expect email communication, 37% of social network site users expect SNS updates, and 11% of phone texters expect to receive text messages
•  27% of wired Obama voters have gone online to learn about or get involved with the presidential transition process.

Where online can you expect to interact with this Internet President?

The obvious starting place is Whitehouse.gov. The site actually changed at 12:01 PM on Inauguration Day (before Obama had taken the oath, but at the time that he was, by law, the President) to the official website of the new President of the United States. This website has official policy, media releases, position papers, video of speeches, photographs, speeches and data about the operations of The White House. It's already more dynamic than the Bush version - they added a blog, for example - but many of us expect other sites to carry even more opportunities for citizen interaction.

Change.gov was the site to follow to learn what the transition team was doing, but the home page is currently just a link to The White House site. That web team is now working on the Citizen’s Briefing Book,where they are asking citizens to share ideas on what the Obama administration should do around many major issues such as the economy, health care, and national security. There is an introductory video, but the general concept is that ideas that receive the highest “vote” totals will be put into a briefing book for the Obama team.

USAService.org is a site to bring change at the neighborhood level - "a tool that will allow you to organize a service event in your community and recruit others to join you. Or, if you’d prefer to join
an existing event, the site will direct you to what others have organized in your neighborhood.”

Finally, there's MyBarackObama.com that was so big during the campaign with more than two million people registered and 13 million voters signed up for the email list. The site also generated more 50% of the $750 million raised. It's still a live site but I haven't found any new mission statement for the site, but after the election, it also turned towards community. I suppose they can start on the 2012 re-election early...

I suspect that in the next four years you will see much more.