Daily Digest: First Peeks Inside the New White House (Website)

• Exploring the New WhiteHouse.gov: While it might not have been until a few minutes after noon that Barack Obama and John Roberts got that oath of office thing sorted out, the White House New Media team was ready to go on time. By late morning yesterday, Change.gov had passed into the sweet beyond and a new WhiteHouse.gov had been born. An early post on the presidential blog from New Media Director Macon Phillips sets the tone: "Millions of Americans have powered President Obama's journey to the White House, many taking advantage of the internet to play a role in shaping our country's future. WhiteHouse.gov is just the beginning of the new administration's efforts to expand and deepen this online engagement." Slate's Farhad Manjoo has a look at the new site. To play downer for a moment, the new White House site doesn't yet have the interactive bells and whistle that made Change.gov exciting (though the 42nd past presidents are given the Barack Obama treatment, spiffed up with polished graphic design and a giant "43" or the like superimposed on their portraits like a basketball uniform number). But Phillips's post on what the Obama Administration will do online (public pools reports, online legislation) reads a lot like what candidate Obama did so often in the campaign -- raising expectations with a Babe Ruthian point towards the bleachers. Can they smack a homer? We'll see. Our Sarah Granger has more and ReadWriteWeb's Rick Turoczy has a great roundup of the evolution of WhiteHouse.gov since its launch in 1994.
• Concert Take Down: Footage of Sunday's "We Are One" concert at the Lincoln Memorial has been pulled down from YouTube, with shots of Pete Seeger and Challenger, the bald eagle who wouldn't fly, replaced by "this video is no longer available due to a copyright claim" notices. Now, HBO had paid $2.5 million for exclusive rights to the coverage, which meant that when the company didn't cover the opening invocation by gay Episcopalian bishop Gene Robinson (a.k.a. the Reverend Rick Warren's counterbalance), anyone not watching from the National Mall missed it. You can now watch the full concert at HBO.com, complete with the Robinson footage. Selling HBO the rights to the show helped foot the big tab for a big event, one meant to be more open to the public than past inaugurations. Big ambitions meets a lack of money? Sounds like a trial run for the Obama presidency.
• Angry as Hell, Ticketholders Take to Facebook: Those of us in DC yesterday got to see first-hand that pouring a couple million people into a confined space isn't without its challenges. There were confusing signals coming from event organizers, irritated law enforcement, the occasional surly volunteer, and Metro stations shuttered in midday. A thousand-member "Survivors of the Purple Tunnel of Doom" Facebook group has developed to help people come to terms with their experience of being stuck outside the festivities in the Third Street Tunnel, and a "Sympathizers of the Survivors of the Purple Tunnel of Doom" group has also sprung up.
• barack.obama@whitehouse.gov: He's keeping the Blackberry, reports someone who ought to know: transition chief John Podesta. (Via Ben Smith) Writing in the LA Times, Podesta uses some particularly evocative language, describing a PDA-less Obama as "like a caged lion padding restlessly around the West Wing, wondering what's happening on the other side of the iron bars that surround the People's House." That's not healthy for the POTUS or the U.S., writes Podesta. "An off-line Obama isn't just bad for Barack. It's bad for all of us."
• "Smiles + Gum = America": This is just weird enough to mention. Trident, the gum company, has launched a contest celebrating Joe Biden's teeth. Entrants are asked to respond to the question, "How has Joe Biden's teeth affected you?" One response already in: "Joe Biden's pearly whites are a beacon of hope in an otherwise dangerous and frightening world." Hey, whatever it takes to make America feel pretty again.

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