Barack Obama’s online presence drove his campaign’s early fund raising and his primary victory over Hillary Rodham Clinton. His campaign’s use of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube proved that he was part of the Web 2.0 generation. So what happened? President Obama hasn’t tweeted once since being sworn into office.
Facebook is supposed to be a safe haven for drunk teenagers who want to post pictures of themselves vomiting. These simple pleasures were being undermined by this solipsistic intruder, “25 Random Things About Me.” But once you stop being annoyed you realize that, at its best, it’s one of the more compelling wastes of time to hit the Web in years.
Everyone knows how well Barack Obama’s presidential campaign made use of new media to raise money and market the candidate. We also know how big a role social technology played during inauguration week, from handheld flip HD footage appearing on network TV to people reporting on Twitter about what they liked and disliked. But one striking trend has largely flown under the national radar: the rise of the goverati.
When the economy goes south, one name invariably surfaces on the lips of pundits and economists: John Maynard Keynes. That is because the twentieth century’s greatest economist is generally associated with the idea that markets require government intervention in order to function properly. But Keynes’ ideas were not just a prescription for an ailing economy; they were a complete theory of capitalism.
President Barack Obama’s move to create a transparent and tech-savvy administration will put Google product manager Katie Jacobs Stanton in the driver’s seat as “director of citizen participation” in March. Search engine optimization gurus, industry experts, ad agency executives and Wall Street analysts provided insight on the move.
Anthony Lake served as one of Barack Obama’s principal counselors on foreign affairs during the campaign and exchanged email messages with him regularly. But now that Mr. Obama is president, Mr. Lake no longer has his email address.
It appears that President Barack Obama gets to keep his BlackBerry after all, but some experts are questioning whether the Research In Motion device will provide enough security for the president.
At a press conference Thursday, a White House spokesman said the president will keep his BlackBerry “to stay in touch with senior staff and a small group of personal friends in a way that use will be limited and that the security is enhanced.”
Barack Obama was just sworn in as President of the U.S. and though he stumbled in repeating his oath, the speech that followed was delivered flawlessly and was widely praised around the web. (Several readers have told us that it wasn’t Obama that stumbled, it was Justice Roberts.) There were quite a few concepts discussed that we suspect haven’t been a part of past inaugural speeches. What words were used most often?
Barack Obama’s inauguration was clearly historic as the United States celebrated its first black president, but the coverage and experience of the inauguration also broke new ground. For the first time, digital satellite images showed the millions of people who braved the cold to see the inauguration.
CNN’s live streaming of the inauguration next to a feed from Facebook is a powerful demonstration of how television can use social media and an equally powerful demonstration of what Facebook can do for various Web sites.
The change anticipated for so long by so many came quickly, just after noon in Washington. After centuries of struggle and halting progress, the nation was finally able to welcome … its first White House new media director.
At noon Eastern time on Tuesday, the very moment that the President-elect Barack Obama officially became Commander in Chief, the presidential Web site also made the switch from outgoing President George H.W. Bush to Obama.
The new whitehouse.gov site promises more interactivity than that of the Bush administration, with a presidential blog as well as a briefing room, where President Obama will give a weekly video address.
It was the kind of incident that makes college athletic directors cringe. In November, shortly after Barack Obama was elected president, a second-string University of Texas football player posted a racist comment about Obama on his Facebook page. It was quickly followed by an apology: “Clearly I have made a mistake and apologized for it and will pay for it,” the student wrote on Facebook.
As the first president-elect with a Facebook page and a YouTube channel, Barack Obama is poised to use the Internet to communicate directly with Americans in a way unknown to previous presidents. Judging by Obama’s savvy use of social-networking sites during his campaign and the interactive nature of his transition team’s Web site, Americans can expect a president who bypasses the traditional media’s filters while reaching out to citizens for input, observers say.
Last week, President-elect Barack Obama’s call for a delay in the Digital TV transition, long scheduled for February, sent tech and telecom firms into a tizzy….Among those with a vested interest in the debate over a DTV delay is Clearwire, which has been racing to deploy its 4G WiMAX networks ahead of competitors wedded to the LTE standard.
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