White House On MySpace, Facebook, Twitter

As of today, the White House has an official MySpace page... and an official Facebook page... and a Twitter feed.

The White House, in a post to its Whitehouse.gov blog, said this new media rollout is an attempt to enact Obama's vision "to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative," as expressed in his last weekly address to the nation. It's using the rollout as an opportunity to disseminate information about swine flu (officially known as the H1N1 virus.

This makes Obama the first president on MySpace and, I believe, Facebook: *major presidential candidates used the online networking sites in 2008, but President Obama is the first sitting president to use them.

The White House will update its MySpace page and Facebook wall with information to stay connected with the public online. Its latest post on Facebook, added at 12:51 p.m. today, contains a link to the Centers for Disease Control page on swine flu (officially called the H1N1 virus), encouraging readers to follow the link and stay informed. A similar entry has been posted to the White House Twitter feed. The White House's MySpace page features content directly fed from the Whitehouse.gov blog.


The pages also open up the chance for followers to submit comments. Users signed up as fans of the White House on Facebook, for instance, can write in the White House's fan-only wall (which excludes White-House-posted links), and, so far, fan posts are published immediately, apparently without being pre-screened by moderators. MySpace users can also leave comments, and MySpace says it will host online discussion forums on the page as well.

*content was added after confirming that Obama is the first sitting president on Facebook