About the time President Obama was taking his oath, his online team was rolling out the new look for WhiteHouse.gov. The site has a blog, and the White House has also set up a YouTube channel.
Early reviews of the online administration are now coming in, and the site is being found wanting. Jay Rosen has tweeted about the un-blogginess of the blog: “So far The Blog at whitehouse.gov is ‘press releases using blog software,’ exactly what I said NOT to do.”
One of the earliest bloggers online, Dave Winer, says the site feels dated:
In 2001 or 2004 even, [the new site] would have been a wonderful breakthrough and I would be singing its praise. But this is 2009, and we know so much more about the web. . . .
[W]hitehouse.gov violates the most basic rule — “People come back to places that send them away.” The White House should send us to places where our minds will be nourished with new ideas, perspectives, places, points of view, things to do, ways we can make a difference. It must take risks, because that is reality — we’re all at risk now — hugely.
At the Confabulum, James Poulus ponders about the mix of the presidency and branding:
There’s a new WhiteHouse.gov in town — bearing that same old Campaign Obama Font (TM). How long, I wonder, can they keep this up? At some point — hopefully sooner, rather than later, the ‘Obama brand’ must be subsumed into the Presidential brand…perhaps even disappear into it. Right? But at this point it appears that future Presidents will either be stuck with Obama’s font or be forced to choose their own. And obviously I don’t just mean the bare font; it’s a schema, and a good one, too, in graphic-design terms.
I have to say I find the persistence of a ‘theme’ or ’skin’ for everything Obama-related unprecedented and somewhat ominous. I realize this may sound like a petty way of knocking someone, but rest assured it’s a critique aimed at the broader culture that naturally branded Obama . . . and accepts this kind of personality-branding as the most natural thing in the world.
Patrick Ruffini, a campaign consultant and a former online producer for the RNC, has posted his own detailed analysis of the changes at WhiteHouse.gov. In particular, he finds something to admire in the fact that the Obama White House doesn’t share the Bush concerns about creating a YouTube channel:
Though myriad challenges remain with the use of social media and user generated content in government . . . the Obama team shows every sign of plowing right on through antiquated readings of the Presidential Records Act that have been used to prevent such things as the creation of a White House YouTube account in the Bush Administration. And voila, here’s the official Obama White House YouTube account, with comments and ratings enabled.
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