The White House website has had a makeover and a half with Barack Obama and the Democrat team coming on board. The layout is a lot more web2.0 and it will be interesting to see how the various pages – like the press pool page – are filled in over the coming months.
For some it may be a little thing, for others it may be a stunt (for example, there’s already a debate going on about the robots.txt file) but it’s another symbol of change being brought in at all levels and another example of how the web is being recognised as an integral part of communicating with the public.
For now, it’s fantastic PR – it not only shows a new approach to chatting with the public, it shows fresh thinking – and with the good design it shows that it’s thinking about the user.
There is a downside to this though: you can just bet in the UK that most politicians will miss the point of what makes the site work and we’ll see a raft of poorly-thought out imitators.