Barack Obama's plans for the web

[Kire]

Barack Obama's plans for the web
By Rajini Vaidyanathan
BBC News, Washington

On election night, as it became clear that Barack Obama had won the election to become the 44th president of the United States, his supporters received an e-mail in their inboxes.
It started like this:

"I'm about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first. We just made history.

"And I don't want you to forget how we did it….."
With a personal sign off at the end saying "Thank you, Barack", it felt intimate, yet this was a mass e-mail, sent to the millions who had subscribed to Barack Obama's campaign alerts.

It's just one example of how the president-elect has used the internet to communicate and create a dialogue with supporters. The Obama campaign's effective use of new media played a big part in his success.

His presence on sites such as such as Facebook and Myspace created online communities which organised supporters to register, campaign, and ultimately go out and vote. He also sent out news via text message, using the medium to inform people of his vice-presidential choice.

In an interview before the election, he spoke of how he wanted to continue that conversation into the White House:

"One of the things that I'm excited about is to transfer what we've learned from this campaign in using technology, into government. I mean, there are huge areas where we can open things up, make things more transparent," he said.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7754485.stm

This is a very informative article about our new government from the BBC.