After a week in sunshiny California, I am back & my bloglines is full. Thanks to Phillip Copley for taking over The Second Cup reigns while I was away enjoying some great Santa Ynez Valley pinot.

WhiteHouse.gov Goes Drupal

WhiteHouse.gov has gone Drupal. After months of planning, says an Obama Administration source, the White House has ditched the proprietary content management system that had been in place since the days of the Bush Administration in favor of the latest version of the open-source Drupal software, as the AP alluded to in its reporting several minutes ago.

Want More Clicks? Tweet Less.

Tweet Much? Don’t Expect a High CTR. New data I’ve been working on seems to indicate that the more frequently you Tweet links, the fewer clicks you’ll get.

I’ve been working towards a statistical model of how an individual makes a decision to ReTweet a specific Tweet and in that process, I came across an interesting problem: before someone ReTweets something, they have to notice it. If you’re anything like me, you’re only able to actually read a small percentage of the total activity in your friend’s timeline, which means that very few of the Tweets I’m technically “exposed” to ever even have the chance of being ReTweeted.

Tapping Into Your Organization's Data

I’m at the CIO Perspectives Forum here in DC today, and I participated in an interesting lunch discussion.  This discussion focused on how organizations can better manage the content that they generate.  There were several interesting issues brought up – of which a few I’ll mention below.

First, what constitutes information that an organization needs to archive and classify?  While it is clear to save memos, proposals, spreadsheets, database, etc., what about instant message conversations or company-related tweets?  If these are worth managing, how does a company capture such data and place this data into place with more traditional items?

FYI: I'm now Meghann Olshefski and my new email address is MeghannOlshefski at gmail dot com - Please feel free to send Second Cup tips & GOP tech story ideas to the new email address.

Video: Applying Obama Lessons to State, Local, and Advocacy Campaigns

A couple of weeks ago, Judith Freeman, Scott Goodstein, Julia Rosen and I got to lead what turned out to be a great Netroots Nation discussion about applying the online lessons of 2008 to future political and advocacy campaigns. Between the presentations and the Q&A session with a very engaged crowd, we covered a lot of ground in a relatively short time. But if you didn't make it, never fear: Netroots Nation staff have posted the video, which is also embedded below.

Competing With the Single-Minded

I was talking with a few executives from one of the biggest technology companies in Europe, and they were explaining how their hands were tied in moving forward on the internet. They were doing the best they could under the circumstances, of course, but there were units in their organization that needed to be protected, prices that needed to be supported, sacred cows that couldn't be touched. After all, they argued, how could they wipe out their current business just to succeed online?

Advocates Blamed for WhiteHouse.gov Goof

After individuals went on Fox News and took to the Internet last week complaining they'd received unsolicited e-mails from the White House, the administration said it would change how it collects addresses. That's a good idea, e-mail experts say, because the White House has plenty of room for improvement. "I would grade their e-mail collection process as an F," said Marco Marini, CEO of ClickMail Marketing, citing privacy and e-mail campaign effectiveness concerns.

Grading WhiteHouse.gov, Round Two

Is WhiteHouse.gov, the online hub of the American presidency, getting better?

We've assembled a bipartisan group of five online political observers to regularly grade WhiteHouse.gov. Their marks are based on three criteria: transparency (without jeopardizing national security, does the site reveal the inner processes of the White House?); accessibility (is it easy to navigate?); and engagement (does it offer a two-way line of communication?). -Jose Antonio Vargas

NightTline: Twitter and ABC Launch a Tweetable News Show

Twitter has rapidly become an invaluable tool for news outlets: news anchors are using Twitter constantly to ask questions and gather feedback from their audience, while CNN’s Breaking News account is the #2 most followed user on Twitter. But what ABC and Twitter are about to do tops our list for the boldest use of Twitter within traditional media. -Ben Parr

Flickr Creates New License for White House Photos

Official White House photos are now officially in the public domain, thanks to a licensing change made quietly over the weekend by the Obama administration and the photo-sharing site Flickr.

The White House began posting striking photos of President Barack Obama from its official photographer Pete Souza to the Web 2.0 site in early May. The White House chose to license them using the ultra-liberal Creative Commons Attribution license that lets people reuse, reprint and remix the photos just as long as they credit the original photographers. -Ryan Singel

The near total disaster of the launch of the new WhiteHouse.gov has been met with such bizarre cheerleading across the fruited plain.

The site's blog is pointless and empty of any value-add to the sight whatsoever.  There is no component like MyBO. And then of course, they can't figure out how to send an email. The excuse-making is continuous from inside the White House. But also from outside:

“We need to give the new administration some time to settle in and figure out what else they are doing with Whitehouse.gov and give the other government offices some time to look at the example being set and determine what else they can do to augment their current efforts,” she said.

And:

Last week I suggested in the Daily Digest that Phillips and his team nip criticisms of the site in the bud by posting a "Hey, we're still trying to find the bathrooms, people. So settle down people and try to maintain some reasonable expectations" note to the blog. It looks like that's what they've done.

Oh, so very much to say. I'll keep it brief.

No, we don't need to give the new administration any goddamn time at all to "settle in." Of course we don't, not when they are already the tech savviest administration in history.

The Washington Post saw some of this when it took a look last week:

By late evening, the vaunted new White House Web site did not offer any updated posts about President Obama's busy first day on the job, which included an inaugural prayer service, an open house with the public, and meetings with his economic and national security teams.

Nor did the site reflect the transparency Obama promised to deliver. "The President has not yet issued any executive orders," it stated hours after Obama issued executive orders to tighten ethics rules, enhance Freedom of Information Act rules and freeze the salaries of White House officials who earn more than $100,000.

The site was updated for the first time last night, when information on the executive orders was added. But there were still no pool reports or blog entries.

No one could quite explain the problem -- but they swore it would be fixed.

That's good enough for me!

Even some conservatives are somehow standing in awe.

It's a flop, people. Stand up.

Ironically, since the change-over at WhiteHouse.gov, much more attention has been paid to how the previous administration ran the site. At my blog, I detail an effort to spread a tale claiming the Bush team coded many of its files on the site so they would remain basically hidden from search. The tale is false and was shot down quickly. But the effort to make the charge go viral continues.

If any of these WhiteHouse.gov rollout failures had occurred during the first week of a McCain administration, for instance, the story of course would be completely opposite. Such continual pratfalls would in that case certainly be evidence of the least tech savviest administration in history.

Same facts, different political party in charge. So then the result would of course be a vastly different narrative.

"So settle down and try and maintain some reasonable expectations, people." Oh, yeah?

Prediction: After some smoke and fire, over time Obama's Web efforts will ultimately turn out to be more about wrangling his "network" to get him re-elected, and less about governing.

Much less.

The slobbering love affair just continues.

There is a recent article on Cnet news that once again the White House is changing how they do the www.whitehouse.gov cookie tracking policy.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with what a cookie tracking policy is or why you would want one it is pretty simple. A cookie allows you to monitor who visits your website, how long they were there, what they looked at and a few other things. I've heard it compared to being a shopkeeper who keeps a watchful eye on window shoppers who come into browse.

The real question to me is why would the White House, the most powerful office in the United States want to track users who visit their website. Do they somehow think that they will catch Osama or one of the top ten most wanted this way?

I think that there are several things wrong with this. Firstly this is just another form of government intrusion into our lives. As a small government ideologue I can only see this as an unnecessary form of intrusion. Secondly, the compiling of this data seems to be a waste of money, time and resources. Now I know that the Obama White House found the technology systems "in the dark ages" but this is no reason to go to the total opposite end of the spectrum. Thirdly, why does the government want to allow a third party provider like Google (who's executives gave a total of $150,000 to Obama) to help monitor a government website.

Now I know some people on here would see this and say "well if a private company can do it cheaper then let them" and I would agree with you on that IF I believed that the government should be tracking people via their websites.

Fourth, I think this may be unconstitutional, while I realize that internet users should have no expectation of privacy they should not have be subject to a chilling effect on their freedom of speech/expression. I for one, will not be visiting the White House and watching the embedded YouTube video's. That's just me though.

I would also like to say that if this were a campaign website and you were running for let's say, congress, and you didn't have a cookie tracking enabled then you need to come out of the dark ages. This could be a very useful tool to help you track your statistics and how you are doing with your messaging. The difference to me is that once you are in government it is a whole different story.

I'm sure David All and myself would be more than happy to show you how valuable having a good website and how much good information you can mine out of it can help your campaign.

If you have not seen in yet, WhiteHouse.Gov had a complete makeover yesterday. It looks good. The 'blog' format is being used to keep people updated on the latest happenings with the President as well as providing a central location for President Obama's weekly video address that will begin this week.

Unfortunately Politico discovered that the site is being used for partisan politics. One of the agenda items for WhiteHouse.Gov was on Hurricane Katrina. President Obama took this as an opportunity to attack his predecessor. Below is how it read:

President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur.”

“President Obama swiftly responded to Hurricane Katrina. Citing the Bush Administration’s ‘unconscionable ineptitude’ in responding to Hurricane Katrina, then-Senator Obama introduced legislation requiring disaster planners to take into account the specific needs of low-income hurricane victims.”

The talks of 'unity' and 'dismissal of old politics as usual' I guess are over.

Since the recent publicity on this "mistake" this morning the site has been updated and the Katrina agenda item was removed.

I ventured to WhiteHouse.gov a couple days ago and downloaded several documents about the accomplishments of the Bush team. Get 'em while they're hot.

As I toured through the site, I generally was impressed by both the content and the presentation. Various thoughts came to mind. Example: Remember all of the hosanahs from the mainstream media when the Obama campaign put up its Stop the Smears site, as if it was some sort of brilliant concept? Back in July, NPR reported it like this:

"The site is a response to continuing viral efforts to peg Obama as a Muslim or a dangerous radical. It's part of the increasing role of the Internet in campaigns — political and business — and the ability of anonymous activists to spread rumors literally everywhere at once."

It turns out that George Bush's WhiteHouse.gov archive of its Setting the Record Straight section extends four years.

This White House was of course the first with a rigorous online presence. The contribution of the Bush administration in this regard will of course not be a part of the official narrative. How this all works is no surprise. The reigning meme out there goes like this: When Republicans get it right online, and/or do it well, then it doesn't matter. Or doesn't matter anymore.

So when a founder of Faceboook joined the Obama campaign, this signaled brilliant strategy. But when the usual suspects suddenly figure out that Republicans have moved very quickly and effectively into the social media universe as well, the rules have suddenly changed,because, their argument goes, Republicans just don't get that suddenly Facebook is so five minutes ago. (Even if 150 million registered users may not agree.)

Another example, also from the campaign, is this headline over a post by Newsweek blogger Andrew Romano: Obama's Official Blog is Boring. McCain's is Enjoyable. Why That's Bad News for the GOP.

So even when it's better, it's not.

And even when it is record-setting, it's bad: Fifty-two consecutive months of economic growth. But it doesn't count.

So if the world is not oriented to notice when Republicans get it right online, the question persists: When Republicans get it right online, how will we know?

Perhaps Google will tell us.

I ask because after reading Perry Bacon Jr.'s recent piece at WashingtonPost.com, headlined "Bush Tells His Party to be 'Open Minded'," I came across this typical asinine comment [8:07 p.m. on 1/11] from a hard-working Bush hater, who inadvertently raises a key point: " ... Imagine [Bush's] surprise in finding that the sixth result to a Google search on 'George W. Bush' is side by side photos comparing George W. Bush to a chimpanzee."

The noise war rages, and so what. But, from one point of view anyway, a perfectly legitimate question to ask is: Could this be a perfect description of the new political battlefield? In other words: Win the "Google Primary," and you win ... what? Nothing more than fuel for the rage addicted? Or perhaps: Enough changed minds to win a close election?

If Republican technology capacity stays a secret, at least with those who determine conventional wisdom, perhaps that's a good thing. Under the radar is not a bad place to be at times like these. As the encouraging examples add up. A friend whose blog about public relations issues is called GRPR, and is from Michigan, home to Saul Anuzis, emailed me this week: "Blogged about the Anuzis video and web site. Within minutes I am being followed on Twitter by Anuzis' campaign manager in Lansing."

Anyway, you might want to peruse this solid example of Setting the Record Straight, as well as grab your copy of  "A Charge Kept" while you can. The clock is ticking.