The Next Right's Patrick Ruffini has created a stir. Patrick's arguing that right rooters, or members of the conservative online class, need to quit trying to be the next George Will and focus on producing more and better Karl Roves; I don't know, I thought Jim Brokaw Schieffer did a decent job moderating the presidential debate. Wait, those were three separate events?; The Google Earth team and the University of Richmond are offering up a bird's-eye look at how the U.S. has voted in presidential races going back to Ronald Reagan's Electoral College trouncing of Jimmy Carter; and a good helping more.

Today's announcement of the formation of the Obama-Biden Transition Project, covered in detail here by DemConWatchBlog, left me wondering about two things.
1. If the transition senior staff includes a communications director (Dan Pfeiffer, who was communications director in the campaign), why doesn't it include an internet or new media director?
2. What kinds of interactive components will the transition website include? The announcement included a note saying that "the official website for the transition is www.change.gov and it will be live later today," but so far that site isn't live, at least not for me.

One thing I think we do know: it looks like Blue State Digital, the same powerhouse Democratic internet firm that handled Obama's online needs during the campaign, is building the www.change.gov site. Earlier today I took this screenshot of test.change.gov:

It looks like this url is now password protected.

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.

There have been a number of good critiques of President-elect Obama's one-way use of YouTube to broadcast his weekly radio address (see especially my colleague Ellen Miller and John Dickerson's takes) and so I'm not going to repeat them here. By posting the address on YouTube--even without comments or ratings allowed--Obama is allowing us to see something that we couldn't see before when presidential addresses were just on radio: who cares to listen and who cares to link.

They'd Check the "It's Complicated" Box; The Oppositional Approach to Getting from Here to Five Million; Transition's Tech Team Taps Beltway and Beyond; Government Guide to Marijuana (Vendors); Nanobama, the Microscopic President; DC's Apps Contest Names Winners; Progressives' Annual Participatory Debrief; and more.

Obama Campaign's Trickle Down Belief in the Bottom Up; GOP Insurgents Stump for the Fierce Urgency of Getting Wired Now; Political Discourse, YouTube-Style; Huh, Looks Like Facebook Really Can Get You a Job; Fixing the FCC Begins at Home (Page); The Most Depressing Tweet You'll Get All Day; Summit on Social Networking for Social Change; and more.

Building a Better Bully Pulpit; We the People 2.0; We Have the Tools to Finally Pop the White House Bubble; Government is Cool Again; Japan's Online Politics (or Lack Thereof); Ideas for Change, and a Road Map; and a good deal more.

"Today we're trying out a new feature on our website that will allow us get instant feedback from you about our top priorities. We also hope it will allow you to form communities around these issues -- with the best ideas and most interesting discussions floating to the top."

Ordinarily, you wouldn't get too excited about reading those words on a website. But when they are on the official blog of the President-elect, things are a little different. In fact, this is a big deal. When you consider that for the last eight years, the occupant of the White House has essentially told the public "you get input once every four years, after that I'm the decider," this is huge.

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.

"Does the Internet Matter?;" The Long Campaign's Lessons for Non-Profits; Should Obama Be Relying on YouTube?; The Promise and Peril of a Wired White House; Register Your Favorites in the Mashable Awards; A Gift from Us to You; and more.