Obama Blogs? President-Elect Launches Web Site, Embraces Internet

After running the most technology-dominated presidential campaign in history, it's only logical that Obama would keep the trend going into his new administration. And by all accounts, he has every intention of doing so: The Washington Postreports that the president-elect and his transition team are gearing up (pun fully intended) to "create the first truly 'wired' presidency." So far the major cyber-moves include consolidating the list of over 10 million supporter e-mail addresses gathered during the campaign, planning the transition of Obama's 95-person "new media" campaign staff into an expanded White House operation, and biggest and flashiest of all, the launch of the president-to-be's official Web site, change.gov. It's self-billed as "your source for the latest news, events and announcements so that you can follow the setting up of the Obama administration," and so far it contains a forum to share your election day stories, a newsfeed, and lo and behold, a blog! Take that, anti-blogites—if it's good enough for Obama, it's good enough for us. So is this the era of the blogger-president? Can we expect Web cams in the Oval Office and Twitters from cabinet meetings? Probably not, but the reality may not be so far off. At least according to Andrew Raseij, founder of TechPresident.com, who told CNN: "I wouldn't be surprised if Barack Obama starts doing a weekly YouTube video and also fireside chats for the 21st century by allowing people to filter up questions to him that he might answer." Sounds great! Now all YouTube (and every other media outlet) needs to do is figure out how to monetize it all. Related: RB: Obama Would Win Easily…If the Election Were a Web Poll RB: How Down With Technology Are Each of the Candidates? RB: Obama Changes His View (Or, at Least, His Web Site) On Technology