The dawn of the 2.0 presidency

No one should be surprised that President Barack Obama has had such a dramatic impact on the federal information technology community. Even before he was elected, he set up an online forum to seek public input on how to improve government operations. And whereas his predecessor took a dim view of e-mail, Obama was a self-professed BlackBerry addict and even enlisted the National Security Agency in bulletproofing his device against evildoers looking for the hack of a lifetime. President Obama also brought WhiteHouse.gov into the Web 2.0 era by introducing a blog, promising the public an opportunity to participate in online discussions, and posting executive orders and other documents. And that was just the first few weeks of his presidency. Of course, not all the news in 2009 was of Obama's making — or choosing. The passage of the massive stimulus bill came with a whole new set of challenges, especially for an administration pledged to transparency. Here is a review of the year's news — the good, the bad and the ugly.