President Obama hasn’t updated his Twitter since January 19th. Maybe he’s been busy. Perhaps Twitter was just a campaign tool, and he was never interested in it as a social networking tool at all. The Twitter is sparsely designed: a light blue page with Obama’s face at the top and the Obama O in use as the icon. The design looks like the campaign: inspirational and modern.

Either way, the BarackObama Twitter account was an unprecedented use of the Internet as a means of reaching out to the (voting) public. new administration has continued its strange commitment to social media, despite the twitter abandonment, and has even hired a Director of New Media to this end. His name is Macon Phillips and he’ll be posting on the Whitehouse.gov blog for the next four years. The blog has so far covered such topics as cabinet confirmations, the creation of a “Middle Class Task Force,” and upcoming legislation.

In a post made a minute after noon on Inauguration Day, Mr. Phillips, who was an online strategist for a tech company before Obama, discussed the fresh, user-friendly Whitehouse.gov and the new efforts being made to communicate with the masses. These include the blog, email updates, the weekly address, and a way for people to review and comment on new legislation before it is passed (a very democratic idea).

Why should you care that you can now hear about presidential proclamations and executive orders via RSS? Will it fundamentally change government in this country or the relationship between the people and their government?

Maybe. President Obama certainly seems to hope so; the subtitle on the link to the Office of Public Liaison says, “changing the way Americans engage with their government.” He has prioritized communication, participation, and transparency for his administration; a vanguard of these efforts is the weekly address.

In 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt began broadcasting his famous fireside chats as a way of reassuring the American public during the Great Depression and encouraging their cooperation with his New Deal. He is largely regarded as one of the greatest presidents in American history and was certainly one of the most popular.

In 2008, Barack Obama began broadcasting his weekly address as part of his promise to make his White House more transparent and accountable than any before. Presumably, however, he also has a few other motives tucked up his sleeve. At first the video addresses were even available on YouTube, an almost absurdly populist move in that YouTube is primarily the realm of ranting teenagers, bored corporate drones and everyone in between.

Seeing government officials using new technology is strange. After all, government officials are old. Despite such trite stereotypes, it is these days common knowledge that President Obama is addicted to his Blackberry. Certainly some aspects of the administration’s embrace of technology, like the Twitter account, were campaign-oriented and meant to appeal to young voters. Others, like the weekly address and some of the changes to Whitehouse.gov, have a smack of genuine earnestness about them.

Yet it also makes sense. Shouldn’t the American government be on top of technology in a quickly evolving world? And if our government is by the people, for the people, shouldn’t we, the people, have as much access as is possible and safe? The Internet is at it’s best when it is most democratic – think Wikipedia, Facebook, and Youtube. I think most Americans would agree, government is at its best when it is most democratic as well.