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Barack Obama’s Web Wasteland
SitePoint —
... Writes Evan Ratliff in this month’s Wired magazine, Obama promised a more high tech presidency: “He said he would expand government transparency by putting more data up on the Web, streaming meetings live, and letting the public comment on most legislation for five days before he signs it. He said he would bring blogs, wikis, and social networking tools with him into the executive branch—all overseen by a new national chief technology officer.” ...
Eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow the earnings come out
GMSV —
Much of Silicon Valley is pretty giddy today, celebrating the inauguration of the first wired president and the arrival of an administration the techies feel they can connect with . Indeed, in a convenient illustration of tech’s role in the national conversation, tomorrow’s historic events will be the most thoroughly shared moment in political history . News and social sites and services could find themselves hard pressed to deal with the tidal wave of tweets, texts, posts, photos and videos that will be produced by the pumped-up masses in D.C. and elsewhere. ...
Roundup: Obama’s White House reboot, SoCal’s VC slump and more
VentureBeat —
... Will Obama “reboot” the White House? — Wired looks at the president-elect’s efforts to become more transparent and responsive through tech, and at the obstacles facing efforts. The conclusion is worth quoting: “Instead of turning WhiteHouse.gov into a governmental synthesis of Facebook and Wikipedia, or running a permanent campaign off the White House email list, Obama’s best shot at rebooting the government is to remember how he got there: making people feel that they were part of the solution and then ...
Linkpost | 1.20.2009
TechBlog —
Cell providers: Be gentle with us at the inauguration | Main January 20, 2009 Linkpost | 1.20.2009 [ Note: I'll be helping with our inauguration coverage, so this is likely to be the only post today. ] • The Plot to Kill Google - Wired looks at the antitrust effort thrown at Google when it tried to team up with Yahoo. • Windows 7 - What It Means for Gamers - Not surprisingly, it's a better gaming experience. • Win 7 testers find (and fix themselves) troublesome installer bug - You want something done right, you gotta do it yourself! • Microsoft set to unveil MobileMe competitor next month - Three new services will launch ...
First Bytes: Obama, Google, and Comcast
Tech Observer —
Mainstream media partners with citizen journalists. [WSJ] Working at Google seems to be just as bureaucratic and low-paying as anywhere else. [TechCrunch] Wired wonders whether Obama can keep his tech-friendly approach going as he enters the White House. [Wired] FCC is looking into Comcast's network management practices, again, this time when it comes to VoIP. [Ars Technica] Related Links F.C.C. Investigating Cable Pricing Practices Group Wants ISPs to Come Clean on Traffic First Bytes: Cuil, Comcast, Google, Digg, Verizon
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Obama Gets to Keep Blackberry. Hooray!
Wired: Epicenter —
... Smart phones don't always make us more efficient. But a president needs every possible way to use technology to get information from outside of ...
Obama Gets to Keep His Blackberry
Tech Observer —
... Smart phones don't always make us more efficient. But a president needs every possible way to use technology to get information from outside of ...
The Best Technology of the Bush Years
Wired: Epicenter —
Two weeks ago, I participated in a forum on how Obama should use technology. It's a topic loads of people are discussing these days (including in this excellent piece by Evan Ratliff). During the panel, we could only come up with one good examples of smart ways that the government had used technology under Bush: the patent office's peer-to-patent system, which crowdsources the patent review process.
Afterwards, one of the conference attendees, sent me this long fascinating list of smart ways different federal agencies started ...
Can Obama Really Reboot the White House?
Jerry Brito —
Can Obama Really Reboot the White House?: Great article in Wired recounting all the obstacles in the way of President Obama keeping his promises on online transparency—not the least of which is the lack of any real will on his part: “In other words, with everything he’s done so far, Obama has been acknowledging feedback but not necessarily heeding it.”
Too Early to Criticize Obama's Tech Policy?
Wired: Epicenter —
As pointed out in yesterday's Washington Post, Obama's technology policy has not been as transformative as a lot of Wired readers might have hoped---at least in the first month and a half.
Damnit. Some great things have happened (I'm a big fan of recovery.gov and the memo on FOIA & transparency), but the Post is right that the velocity is lower than expected. Obama is supposed to create a wiki white house. Is it too early to take him to task?
Let's start with the reasons things are moving slow. First of all, the actual technology the team found in the White House is kludgy. The biggest problem is apparently an ...
Thumbs Up on Obama's "Open for Questions"
Wired: Epicenter —
Yesterday, whitehouse.gov launched its openforquestions page on which users can submit questions for Obama about the economy. He'll answer some of them in an online town hall Thursday.
As readers of this blog and the magazine know, creating interactive web pages on whitehouse.gov is no easy task. At Wired, we can just delete comments from trolls, collect loads of information about you, and experiment with whatever software tools we can find. The government has to deal with questions about censorship if they delete comments, privacy if they keep track of you, and complicated procurement rules to use any kind of software. ...
Digging Obama's Online Experiment
Tech Observer —
Yesterday, whitehouse.gov launched its openforquestions page on which users can submit questions for Obama about the economy. He'll answer some of them in an online town hall Thursday.
As readers of this blog and the magazine know, creating interactive web pages on whitehouse.gov is no easy task. At Wired, we can just delete comments from trolls, collect loads of information about you, and experiment with whatever software tools we can find. The government has to deal with questions about censorship if they delete comments, privacy if they keep track of you, and complicated procurement rules to use any kind of software. ...
Obama and Crowdsourcing: A Failed Relationship?
Wired: Epicenter —
The blowback from President Obama's interactive town hall has been intense and widespread. It's all terribly interesting, though not for any of the reasons people think. The incident signifies the end of one, increasingly troubled stage in the courtship between the President and social media, and — we can only hope — the beginning of another, more realistic and mature stage. At this critical juncture I'd like to offer some relationship counseling. It's perceived by many that the forces of drug reform "hijacked" the White House’s Open for Questions platform. Indeed, decriminalization is nowhere to be found in any ...
