
Whitehouse.gov Has A New Face - transburgh
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/20/whitehousegov-has-a-new-face/
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blogimus
Whitehouse.gov also has a new robots.txt file (
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/robots.txt> )

If you search google for 'whitehouse' and 'robots' then you can still see the
cache of the robots.txt file of the Bush Administration
([http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:tCfemw3M-aUJ:www.whiteho...](http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:tCfemw3M-aUJ:www.whitehouse.gov/robots.txt+whitehouse+robots))

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keyes
All the URLs in the former robots.txt seem to end in "/text". It's likely that
they just didn't want the text versions of the articles to be indexed.

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jonknee
You are correct. The text versions were present for screen readers.

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sh1mmer
Instead of just using good markup in the first place?

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jonknee
Good markup can't handle it all, text-only mode allows for stuff like having a
transcript instead of a video with a link to a transcript. Text-only mode is
even available on the new site:

<http://www.whitehouse.gov/accessibility/>

"In addition to the features that make the graphics version of the site more
accessible, a text-only version provides added convenience for users."

I'm not sure how to access it though, maybe that feature hasn't launched yet.

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sh1mmer
I'm going to disagree. Let me share some background, I spent several years
helping to write the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 spec. The
original WCAG 1.0 as well as Section 508 specify an alternate text only site
as a viable method.

Real world experience shows us those sites quickly fall behind. Text-
alternatives are necessary for multimedia content, text-only sites as an
alternative to good markup aren't.

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bmelton
Fall behind in what sense? Obviously, if the multimedia content isn't
transcribed quickly enough, then that makes sense, but I would also guess less
consequential than if a given page weren't transformed from 'marked up' to
'text', but in the latter case, if the backend is dynamic, and just changing
the output format, why would it fall behind?

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sh1mmer
People just don't want to maintain 2 sites. Extra features and sections often
don't get updated to the text only rendering.

I guess my point is that screen readers like (even prefer) well written
markup. A text-only site is a kickback from when they couldn't and the
accessibility guidelines were written to deal with that.

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trickjarrett
It's also built using jQuery as tweeted by jResig. I was hoping Obama would
begin using twitter immediately after taking the Presidency. We'll see if the
twitter account falls into the history books and is not utilized.

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mechanical_fish
I think I'm prepared to forgive the President for not having the time to post
on Twitter.

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henning
What? No. He has to spend 15 hours a day checking email and tweeting like Gary
Vaynerchuk says! Social media!!

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wheels

      dm @joeyb Bleh, this Gordon guy is boring me to tears. Your turn next time. Bar ltr?

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callahad
Check out <http://www.whitehouse.gov/copyright/>

"Except where otherwise noted, third-party content on this site is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Visitors to this website
agree to grant a non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free license to the rest
of the world for their submissions to Whitehouse.gov under the Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0 License."

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danielrhodes
This doesn't mean much. I believe all works produced by the federal government
are in the public domain and you don't need permission to reproduce them.

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callahad
True, and covered in the first of the three paragraphs at that link:

"Pursuant to federal law, government-produced materials appearing on this site
are not copyright protected. The United States Government may receive and hold
copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise."

The news is that they're defaulting to Creative Commons for all "third-party
content" on the site, including user submissions. That's the part that got me.
Even if they're not producing it, they're trying to keep information open (as
opposed to just requiring copyright assignment, for instance)

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bgutierrez
Even better, it's valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional:
[http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.whitehous...](http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.whitehouse.gov%2F&charset=\(detect+automatically\)&doctype=Inline&group=0)

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axod
//<![CDATA[ Why is this good? &amp; why is it better than HTML4.01 Strict?
XHTML is not beautiful. //]]>

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teej
XHTML is also pointless when it's served up at text/html

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showerst
The main big block of text next to the picture is a jpg, and looks like it has
a ton of compression artifacts. tsk tsk! =)

Other than that it's an awesome site, definitely the best government agency
site I've ever seen.

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noonespecial
Those aren't compress... wait.. yessss that's exactly what they are.
Compression artifacts. Move along. You didn't see nuthin'.

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nirmal
Who's going to add the Whitehouse blog to their feedreader?

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brandonkm
I'm sure a ton of people will. In fact, I would bet that the whitehouse blog
may introduce lots of people to RSS for the first time ever. The concept of a
more transparent government where citizens are informed about the happenings
inside the white house will be heavily at play here.

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run4yourlives
The President of the United States now has a blog.

Unbelievable only a year ago, really.

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froo
Yes, but one must wonder if he uses "The Google"

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jrnkntl
But why are they using some external commercial company for visitor analytics?
(webtrendslive.com)

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ALee
probably because of government contract, but also because in the DC region
WebTrends is well-known as an analytics tool

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transburgh
I don't know what to think that the site has a blog.

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redorb
doesn't have comments (to avoid trolls and spam) - and its basically a "hip"
way of saying a press release in a conversational tone. I think its ok.

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cmos
ok, am I the only fool who got a bit teary eyed when going through
whitehouse.gov? Whether you agree with his politics or not, you have to admit
that he is going to change the way we interact with our government.

"President Obama started his career as a community organizer on the South Side
of Chicago, where he saw firsthand what people can do when they come together
for a common cause"

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josefresco
I want to know who did the new design/site work?

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showerst
I don't have any idea, but Blue State Digital did his campaign site and a
bunch of other dem 08 work, so perhaps it was them.

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tptacek
Blue State Digital built CHANGE.GOV, and this is pretty clearly a
continuation, although the impression I get is that they've brought a lot of
it in-house.

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seehafer
Macon Phillips, who is listed on LinkedIn as a "Director of Strategy and
Communications for Blue State Digital" is now the Director of New Media for
the Executive Office of the President:
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/change_has_come_to_whitehouse...](http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/change_has_come_to_whitehouse-
gov/)

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DTrejo
It seems pretty slow - I guess that's a good sign (many people looking at it?)

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TweedHeads
And so does <http://whitehouse.net>

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TweedHeads
Screenshot

<http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/7974/chinahousehd8.png>

