Yesterday, the Department of Defense launched a new site, defense.gov. It appears to be targeted at the general public, whereas its standard site, defenselink.mil, has always felt like it was serving those in the defense community.

It's great that the department recognized a communication gap with private citizens. For a democracy to stay strong, it's important that its members stay engaged with their government. But right now, defense.gov seems like little more than a portal full of outbound links to pre-existing sites, all of which house various forms of press releases: the obligatory Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube links on the left, along with links to each branch of the armed services; news features in the main body about DoD "going green", a recent awards ceremony, etc.; and Iraq and Afghanistan news on the right. It is just a compilation of stuff that's already out there. Nothing new.

Government agencies considering a revamped Web presence should keep this tenant in mind: the point of a site like this it not to exploit each and every new method of broadcasting your message. The point is to listen.

Last week, we found out that US Strategic Command--the military post that oversees the US Armed Forces' computer networks--was close to announcing an outright ban on all social networking Web sites. This is alarming.

Fortunately, it appears the Department of Defense is formulating its Web use policies in a practical and transparent way: by soliciting input from the public. A few days ago, the department launched the Web 2.0 Guidance Forum, a modest blog that echo's the OSTP blog's "Here's what we're thinking about; what do YOU think?" tone. One of the first posts addresses the rumored social networking ban:

A DoD program meant to assist military personnel in registering and voting is drawing Congressional fire over the hiring of a new overseer. A bipartisan group of Congressmen is irked that the Federal Voting Assistance Program has failed to meet the goal of making it easier for those in uniform to participate in the democracy they protect.

While not specifically an Internet issue, the Government Computer News (Yes, I read it. I'm that geeky) article had two passages that caught my eye.