• Governing 2.0's Back and Forth: You might have heard that President-elect Barack Obama posted a speech billed as "Your Weekly Address" to YouTube this weekend. What was largely a three-and-a-half-minute stump speech on the economy -- made presidential-ish by virtue of being delivered from behind a desk and in front of legal tomes -- now has more than 700,000 views, as our Micah Sifry notes. (While this setup isn't all that interactive as of yet, we'll at least be keeping track of who's watching and linking to these addresses on techPres.) First, a dose of bah humbug. Slate's John Dickerson makes the case that such "shiny distractions" might actually hinder transparency and the Christian Science Monitor's Alexandra Marks says that truly interactive government would require "a radical transformation of the entrenched culture of secrecy" in Washington. But TechCrunch guest writer Brian Solis is ready with ideas on how Obama can give life to his (Brian's) "techtopian dreams" of collaborative government. Solis suggests Obama aim beyond just broadcasting to the masses more effectively, to engage through tech tools like GetSatisfaction or through a social-networking site at Change.gov.

• President in a Bubble: There are a lot of life changes in store for President Obama -- new job, new house, new school for his girls. And now he has to give up his beloved Blackberry, too? Obama, who's often spotted with the gadget firmly planted on his belt, is finding himself quickly pulled inside the impenetrable bubble that surrounds American presidents, reports the New York Times' Jeff Zeleny. With recent rulings making the White House's digital communications even more transparent, as Matthew Burton noted on techPresident, e-mail, alas, seems to be an untenable way for a president to reach beyond his immediate world.

• We All Want to Change.gov the World...: Google.org's Larry Brilliant, reports ZDNet's Tim Ferguson, says that it's now the job of the technology industry to help save the world. Brilliant, a famed epidemiologist who is now leading the team that just released Google Flu Trends maps (and who also just so happened to co-found the legendary online community, the WELL), is a visionary for our time -- tackling the brick-and-mortar world's most entrenched problems, using what we've learned in the brief history of the 'net thus far.

• Bibi Obama: Barack Obama and Israeli politician Benjamin Netanyahu aren't often thought of as two peas in a pod. But take a look at the prime ministerial candidate's website, and you might think that the Likud hawk and the Democratic president-elect have a lot in common: same rising sun motif, same striking color pallete, and similar slogan, report the New York Times' Ethan Bronner and Noam Cohen. The prime ministerial candidate's people don't deny it; says a spokesperson: "We're all in the same business, so we took a close look at a guy who has been the most successful and tried to learn from him." One area, though, where the Israeli might be the innovator is on Twitter. The campaign plans to make good use of its @netanyahu account, something Team Obama never quite achieved.

• And the Rest...: Here are a handful of quick pointers to what's interesting today. The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder has a short guide to Democrats' data operations, from VAN to Catalist to VoterBuilder. An Inaugural Tweet-up asks "Can you imagine a tweet-up so big President-elect Obama had to stop by?" (Thanks Shaun Dakin) An editor at MSNBC.com details how they went about creating election maps. And while both Democracy for America and the New York Times are playing the "Pick the President's Cabinet" game, only with DFA do the truly prescient get a t-shirt.

In Case You Missed It...

Gene Koo looks at MyBarackObama.com, The Game. Sure, game play wasn't perfect and n00bs got a raw deal at times, but it was "a watershed moment for video games," writes Gene -- one when "the medium showed that it can, indeed, change the world."

Nancy Scola notes the news that the Obama-Biden transition team has appointed well-known Internet advocate Susan Crawford to co-lead the team charged with reviewing the Federal Communications Commission. Nancy also suggests that Change.gov's blog is showing signs that incoming administration groks that the Internet can serve as a useful feedback loop for the President-elect.

Larry Brilliant | video addresses | White House emails | YouTube
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