• obama
• politics
• web 2.0

I continue to wonder what a continuation of the Obama "movement" will look like. This Slate story asks whether Obama can continue the participatory ethic of his campaign when he moves into the White House:

Though no one in the Obama camp will discuss the specifics, Democratic Web guru Joe Trippi and others believe that the White House Web site will transform into a social network—a kind of Facebook for citizens, a place where people can learn about and work toward passing the president's agenda. Trippi argues that if Obama can use the Web to spark the same well-organized fervor for his policy goals as he did for his campaign, "I think it's going to be one of the most powerful presidencies we've seen since FDR, and maybe even more powerful. Even the best presidents have never had a way to connect directly with millions of Americans—Obama will have that."

Obviously, there's some hyperbole here, but I'm intrigued by a "Facebook for citizens." My question is: Without a definite goal or endpoint (i.e. getting someone elected), how will such collaboration work? What will be the milestones? Right now, the Change.gov site that offers a peak into the transition process is not interactive (Clay pointed this out last week). But the track record seems to indicate that this will change (if not in the Change.gov iteration, then in the Whitehouse.gov iteration).

In related news, the Obama campaign announced its ethics guidelines today. Among other things, the transition team is prohibiting any lobbyists from working on a part of the transition that is related to their lobbying activities over the previous 12 months. So, the transparency seems to be there thus far. It will be interesting to see when the Web 2.0 kicks in...

• Jim Brown's blog
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