By now, most of you (especially the mac-ophiles) have probably heard the anecdote of Obama’s new media team entering the White House faced with 6-year-old versions of Windows, nary a laptop in sight, and no social networking tools in place. More than giving me a chuckle and pause – and encapsulating the huge technological overhaul ushered in by the Obama team – the story points up a new dilemma for an administration that’s carving a niche of not only being ultra-current, but more importantly, who is claiming to be transparent.

So, what’s the dilemma? Well, it’s actually more of a fear than a dilemma. I worry that bloggers (from either side of the fence, to be fair) will criticize the Obama team for not treating the new WhiteHouse.gov blog as a traditional blog (or, rather, how we’ve come to define a traditional blog… with open comments, strikethrough edits and the like). I anticipate that closed comments, highly-filtered info, and heavily-edited prose may be thrashed by critical eyes (and countered with unforgiving keystrokes).

I hope this fear is unfounded. I hope that the blogging community can accept that the use of social networking tools in this capacity must be politicized (such a gloppy, misused word anyway). This is not a case of the Obama team trying to talk the talk and tripping over their own priggish walk… They get it; it’s clear from how they ran the campaign that they get it. I just hope that the community takes the social networking and blog push from the Obama team for what it is – a measured, accountable, pulling-back of the executive curtain in a fitting way – and not for what it’s not and never can be…

This ain’t no JenniCam on the WH Master Bedroom, folks. Media transparency in the White House is (and needs to be) a relative term.

So, a toast to you, Obama New Media Team… Here’s to responsible openness within a rapidly changing mediascape:

(Amazing pic courtesy of Boston.com’s Big Picture feature)

Now that Joe Biden has starred in the text message heard ’round America, the DNC can now officially get underway.

LocaModa is excited to be involved! This coming Sunday, August 24th, we’ll be partnering with the Outburst Tour, the Institute for Politics, Democracy, and the Internet, and the University of Denver at a series of forums throughout the day.
[more after the jump]

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On Friday night at the Grand in San Francisco, the greatest air guitarists in the nation will gather… and now you can virtually support them from anywhere! Just load up the Touchtunes and USAG Wiffiti screen and send your text messages live to the large screens in the venue! Feel free to check it out now and send your words of encouragement to Nordic Thunder and all of his fearless challengers…
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If you’re reading this blog, I’m going to go ahead and assume that you have some sort of close, personal relationship with the intertubes (or perhaps I’m just projecting).

While I typically use the term “The Web Outside” to refer to web-based apps in the out-of-home space, today I’ll extend that definition to include web-referential apps in the body art space.

A few of my faves:

The Classic Binary ‘too,

The Goog-Worshipping ‘too (that one has the red outline as proof that it’s real… well, unless that guy has some outstanding skin condition),

The Firefox is Foxy Too ‘too (It’s clearly perfect when coupled with denim shorts… although I’m thinking that one may be a press-on),

and my very favorite…

The Power ‘too

pics below the fold…
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