Yesterday, the Department of Defense launched a new site, defense.gov. It appears to be targeted at the general public, whereas its standard site, defenselink.mil, has always felt like it was serving those in the defense community.

It's great that the department recognized a communication gap with private citizens. For a democracy to stay strong, it's important that its members stay engaged with their government. But right now, defense.gov seems like little more than a portal full of outbound links to pre-existing sites, all of which house various forms of press releases: the obligatory Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube links on the left, along with links to each branch of the armed services; news features in the main body about DoD "going green", a recent awards ceremony, etc.; and Iraq and Afghanistan news on the right. It is just a compilation of stuff that's already out there. Nothing new.

Government agencies considering a revamped Web presence should keep this tenant in mind: the point of a site like this it not to exploit each and every new method of broadcasting your message. The point is to listen.

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Here's my and Andrew Rasiej's latest Politics 2.0 column, which ran in the Politico last Thursday.

If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s seventh biggest in terms of population. In terms of the amount of attention it draws daily from its 175 million members — roughly 20 to 30 minutes on average spent updating their profiles, reading about their friends, playing games and sharing news — Facebook could easily power a midsize economy.

Here in the United States, we already know that Facebook is a meaningful platform for political engagement: from President Barack Obama on down, thousands of politicians, candidates and causes have built presences on the site, accumulating millions of supporters.

Given all the social and political activity on Facebook, some questions arise: Is Facebook a public square, like a town hall or village green? Or is it more like a private mall? Do Facebook’s members have rights? Should they have a say in the governing of the site? And how might that work?

I shouldn't admit it in this space, but you can count me among those skeptics still surprised that creating a cantankerous Facebook group can be your ticket to a meeting with a big-city law enforcement official. I'm talking about Survivors of the Purple Tunnel of Doom, a group created to raise holy heck over some inauguration day ticketing debacles, and the audience granted to its creators with Terrance Gainer, Senate Sergent-at-arms and the bloke responsible for much of the law enforcement on the ground inauguration day.