"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.

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.

The Washington, DC government just procured 47 Web-based tools in 30 days, all for just $50,000.

This is good news in any year. But this year, it is a blessing.

Yet another reason for governments to use open source software: it promotes global standards. And a government's compliance to such standards, writes IBM's Bob Sutor, is emblematic of its commitment to its people.

Early last week, a federal judge ruled in favor of transparency advocates seeking to preserve a slew of poorly stored White House email.

Now, a ruling in a separate case makes this saga a bit murkier.

Time for some editorial housekeeping. In our never-ending quest to cover how technology is changing politics and serve the growing community of activists, technologists, journalists, politicians, government workers, bloggers and plain old citizens who are engaged in making this change happen, we are pleased to announce two new additions to our editorial crew. Dave Witzel and Allison Fine are coming on board Personal Democracy Forum as senior editors who will help expand our coverage on PersonalDemocracy.com of how mass, networked participation in the public arena is affecting all the important arenas outside of electoral campaigns (which we cover obsessively at techPresident).