Apps for Democracy is a remarkable contest for software developers launched by the city government of Washington DC. The challenge? Build applications for Facebook, iPhones, Google Maps, and more that make the lives of DC citizens better. And do it while making use of the city's rich data catalog, which contains structured data on everything from ongoing construction projects to crime reports to sites along the African American Heritage Trail. Up for grabs is $20,000 in prize money, including two $500 people's choice awards voted on by fellow coders.

Let's hope President-elect Barack Obama had a restful Tuesday night, because it's about the only time in the next two and a half months that he won't have someone whispering in his ear with advice on what kind of presidency his should be; Perhaps even more important than the question of who will be the nation's first Chief Technology Officer is the matter of how much real juice he or she will have; As we look forward, let's not forget to look back at how we got to where we are; and more.

After taking a quick initial look at Change.gov, the Obama transition team's new site, we concluded that while it echoes the campaign's talk of open government, the site doesn't have much meat on its bones yet. The Next Right's Jonathan Klingler suggests that the fact that the site has "plenty of feedback forms but not much more" points to the "contradiction of the postmodern left netroots." Let's take a deep breath here; But members of Team Obama aren't the only ones who have been busy. Familiar online conservatives Patrick Ruffini, Erick Erickson, Mindy Finn, Michael Turk; Justin Sayfie, former spokesman for Gov. Jeb Bush; and others have launched RebuildTheParty.com; Some in the online left aren't pleased with the decisions President-elect Obama has made or is rumored to possibly be making; and a good deal more.

In January, not only will we have the first African American President, but we have the first "Tech President" as has been said many times before on this blog.

With that, there are a lot of questions being discussed at Obama HQ, in the transition, on this blog, and all over the tubes – what to do with Obama's list? What to do with BarackObama.com? What to do with WhiteHouse.gov? Will President Obama use the internet to make government more transparent (I bet former Blue State Digital partner Clay Johnson and the Sunlight Foundation have a few ideas on that), and how can the President-Elect use all this to be a better President? And many more questions.

The New York Times' Michael Falone makes note of a happening that Michael Whitney highlighted on techPresident earlier this week: Change.gov, the Obama-Biden transition site, quietly dropped an "Agenda" section that appeared largely cribbed from campaign materials, replacing it with an oblique 100 words on what's considered important by the incoming Obama-Biden administration; ABC News' Rick Klein has a good overview piece on some of the legal and logistical questions facing the digital arm of Team Obama as it moves into the presidency; If one of the 10 million emails the Obama campaign collected happens to belong to you, you likely recently got a request for cash donations to help the Democratic National Committee "recover the resources it took to win;" and a good helping more.

If President-elect Barack Obama and his transition team are looking for a model that uses the power of social networks and citizen democracy to open up government, they ought to bring their own homepage - Change.gov - and replace the g-o-v with a little o-r-g.

Online social activism portal Change.org, whose origins predate (by just a little bit) the theme of the Obama '08 campaign, has opened up a super-connected suggestion box on national policy - and if they're smart, the new Obama Administration will dive right in. I can almost picture a Capraesque scene in the Cabinet Room come January: Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel dumps a huge hamper of Change.org suggestions on the big, shiny and table and calls on the startled Secretaries to "dig in" as President Obama nods in approval.

Not that you'd divine that sort of attitude from the dot-gov side of the Change domain spectrum: Change.gov is a handsome, well-designed billboard with a light Obama agenda, the latest transition news, and the ability to apply for jobs and send in suggestions. It's the polar opposite of the much-lauded MyBO site of the campaign, where the campaign allowed organizers to - well - organize publicly using the Obama team's digital plumbing. And no, your once-prized MyBO log-in and identity won't work in the Office of the President-elect.

During the campaign, presidential hopeful Barack Obama put volunteerism front and center -- quite literally, dedicating valuable home page real estate to, for example, calls for help during Hurricane Gustav. The practice helped to define him as a compassionate "brother's keeper" candidate, and President-elect Obama seems intent on taking with him to the White House; when it comes to the first national CTO, are we not actually talking about a Chief Information Officer -- that is, less a nuts-and-bolts technologist-in-chief and more an executive-minded leader with a vision of how government handles its IT duties; and a good deal more.

Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google and Chairman of the Board of the New America Foundation, spoke earlier today about technology, innovation, the economy, energy, and how they are all linked. Schmidt is on the short list for Obama's CTO, and he is a member of President-Elect Barack Obama's Transition Economic Advisory Board, so here's an opportunity to learn a little about how he thinks on these topics, through a transcript from his talk.

The next White House Web site should tell us a lot about whether Obama believes what he has said about bringing transparency and accountability to the government.

Letting Us in to the White House; Conventional Wisdom Turns Against CEOs as CTO; Busting Out of the "Finest Prison in the World;" Building the Post-Obama Movement; NASA's Filling CIO Position at the Speed of Light; How Did Times Readers Do in Their Cabinet Bets?; and a good deal more.