Intellectual Property Law

President-elect Obama plans to use the web as a major communications tool when he takes office in the White House, according to unnamed aides cited in a Washington Post article on Monday.

The article states that Obama has built up a e-mail list of 10 million supporters, and the White House's communications efforts will center around that list.

The Obama transition team has already set up a preliminary online presence at Change.gov, where it is posting announcements, soliciting feedback from the public and taking job applications, among other things.

The article goes on to note:

As part of the presidential transition, Obama officials are looking to add a significant "new media" component to the White House communications operation. The campaign employed 95 people in its Internet operation, building a user-friendly Web site that served as a platform for grass-roots activities and distributed statements, policy positions and footage of Obama events. The White House Web operation will follow a similar but probably more ambitious path, transition officials said.

Obama is widely expected by the inside-the-Beltway community to use the web to redefine the relationship between the President and his constituents, just as he did so with voters during the 2008 campaign when he often used tech tools like YouTube and text messaging to communicate directly with voters, bypassing the media.

"I think you're going to see this new model used throughout his presidency that Obama's pioneered that allows him to reach many more people in a much more meaningful way," says Simon Rosenberg, president and founder of the non-profit think-tank NDN in a recent interview. "Just like the advent of radio changed the relationship between those that govern and their voters, President (elect) Obama will start to re-invent the relationship of American citizens to their president using the new and modern internet-based tools."

This could take shape in the form of Saturday YouTube addresses instead of or in addition to the President's weekly Saturday radio address, Rosenberg speculated. The point is that Obama is expected to use the tools to go "over the heads" of the media to communicate and to mobilize voters.

Much of the grassroots-capital that the Obama campaign had built up was through my.BarackObama.com. On Friday, Obama online organizing guru Chris Hughes anounced that it would continue to maintain the site.

TechPresident's Micah Sifry notes that Obama by law can't import myBo to the White House since the law states that government resources can't be used for political operations. So he expects the Obama campaign to migrate myBo to the Democratic National Committee, where it could be managed.