As part of their on-going series of many-to-one sit downs with government leaders that casts Steve Grove as the avatar for thousands of Americans, YouTube sat down with the Federal Communications Commission chair Julius Genachowski yesterday, the same day that Genachowski's FCC released Connecting America, its long-awaited National Broadband Plan:

At 35 minutes and consisting of 17 questions that poured in from the public through Google Moderator, the chat is a condensed look at how this FCC is looking at the Internet as an essential component of American life. Genachowski tackled the big questions, from what the government plans to do about the coming wireless spectrum crunch to the near-total lack of competition on the backbones of American communications infrastructure that leaves many Americans either paying too much for broadband, or unable to get broadband at all -- and thus, unable to participate in things, like, say, a YouTube chat with the chairman of the FCC.

Grove, who is getting the hang of acting as the medium for the public's questions, introduced a fun feature called FCCaesar That's a play on both Genachowksi's first name, and, it seems, the fact that the chair is the executive branch's top dog on telecommunications. Genachowski played along, running through a series of strong questions by giving them a thumbs up/thumbs down, and sticking admirably to a sentence or two description of just why he felt the way he did on the topic at hand.

Also tackled: the traditional mediocrity (and we're being kind) of the Federal Communications Commission's online presence. It's a favorite obsession in these parts. Genachowski, it seems, shares that focus. "One of the things I'll tell you is that we inherited a website that won an award in the 1980s," he told Grove, "and that probably wasn't updated since." Ouch! He went on. "We have just a terrific new media team, kind of a SWAT team of really committed folks who are working on upgrading our operations. They've done an incredible job. If you go to Reboot.FCC.gov, it's actually a place where you can participate in our effort to re-craft a website that really works in an Internet era." Relatedly, the release of the National Broadband Plan yesterday was coupled with the rollout of a brand new Broadband.gov site, meant to act as a hub for what will hopefully be a continuing robust discussion about the role of the government in connecting America.

It has been suggested by-I-won't-say-whom that our dear readers here are techPresident are exactly the sort of smart, tech-savvy, with-it people who should be asking Julius Genachowski questions in next week's YouTube conversation with the Federal Communications Commission chair. You know the drill. Submit questions through Google Moderator, and then get other people to vote it up.

The timing is pretty exquisite; the interview is happening next Tuesday, March 16th, which happens to be the very same day that the FCC is releasing its much anticipated national broadband strategy. Of course, it might have been more constructive if we had a chance to read the thing first, but you can prep yourself with these background materials.

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