Obama Introduces New Technology to the White House

Barack Obama has already introduced a new White House position, chief technology officer, and is planning on introducing even more technology to the White House. It is already being seen on his transition web site - for the first time ever, a YouTube version of President-elect Obama's weekly radio address will be posted online. This is the first visible step in Obama's attempt to speak more directly to the electorate, and it will likely work - Obama drew in more than 110 million viewers for his 1,800 campaign-related videos.

Obama's media team wants to make it easier for the public to speak to him as well. A prototype of how this will work was released at www.Obamacto.org. This setup allows people to post questions online and vote for the questions they like. The questions with the most votes are likely to be addressed by Obama. So far, the leader late Friday, with more than 10,000 votes, was "ensure the Internet is widely accessible & network neutral," which Obama backs. Not so the second-ranked priority, repealing the USA PATRIOT Act.

"If 10,000 people say they want Obama to answer a question, he's probably going to respond," said Andrew Rasiej, the founder of the Personal Democracy Forum.

Hopefully this will allow Obama to get his message out to the public, without the mainstream media butchering what he says in order to fit their beliefs and agendas. I think it will also allow grassroots organizations to get their concerns heard, not only by the general population, but also by Obama himself.

Barack Obama has promised a more transparent government, and I think he is well on his way to keeping that promise.