Barack Obama came to office promising to "use cutting-edge technologies to create a new level of transparency, accountability, and participation" in government. Now, that pledge is about to get its first real test.

The administration has just launched a website to explain the details of the $787 billion stimulus package that Obama signed into law yesterday. Right now the site lays out the package of tax cuts and spending in broad-brush terms. But it promises to eventually provide maps, charts, graphics--and raw data in exportable form--to show which states, Congressional districts, and even contractors are receiving the money.

This would be a first-of-a-kind technology effort by the federal government. The body overseeing these data dumps will be the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, a panel of government inspectors that will be created as part of the stimulus law.

"Instead of politicians doling out money behind closed doors, the important decisions about where taxpayer dollars are invested will be yours to scrutinize," Obama pledges in a You Tube video posted on the site.

President Obama promised during his campaign to "use cutting-edge technologies to create a new level of transparency, accountability, and participation for America's citizens" and "to reform government and improve the exchange of information between the federal government and citizens." His new White House website has been live for two days now. From a design perspective, it resembles his campaign and transition sites. But it's still a blank slate in terms of providing relevant and otherwise difficult to access information, or in allowing visitors to do much.

It's early, of course. Still, I was surprised to see no photo or video of his second swearing-in, performed after Chief Justice John Roberts flubbed the constitutionally required version on Inauguration Day. (After all, there was no shortage of videography during the campaign: viewers spent 14 million hours watching 1,800 Obama-campaign-related videos, for a total of 50 million views.) And while Obama's staff posted the text of his first two presidential orders--one involving the archiving of presidential records, the other restricting lobbyist activity--I found no background on what will be his most consequential order so far: that of closing Guantanamo and any remaining CIA prisons within a year. We can expect to see the text of this order, too, but presidential orders are already publicly available. If ever there were a topic that might benefit from some extra freedom-of-information sunshine from the White House, Gitmo would be it.

The White House site says that the posting of the presidential orders is "just the beginning of our efforts to provide a window for all Americans into the business of the government." So maybe today's home-page video links--to the inauguration events and to Obama's preinaugural whistle-stop train ride--will be replaced by tomorrow's never-before-seen videos of post-9/11 interrogations. We know that Obama's people well understand the power of the Web. How they choose to use that power remains to be seen in his briefing room, in his blog, and by signing up for e-mail updates.

The Obama transition team's Web presence revolves around www.Change.gov, which sets out his platform, takes job applications, and invites supporters to submit their stories from the campaign's front lines. But there's pretty strong evidence that once Obama is in office, presidential communications and overall strategy will revolve around new media. In short, the presidential-election counting is done--and the Web was an even bigger winner than we knew.

Here's the data: Obama's campaign garnered a staggering $500 million in online donations from more than three million people. Personal fundraising pages alone--those online tools that let supporters browbeat friends and acquaintances for money--hauled in $30 million from 70,000 organizers. (Not bad, considering the investment of campaign time and money: zero.)

Supporters also created 35,000 volunteer groups and organized 200,000 real-world events, such as house parties, via the Web. Then there was the get-out-the-vote effort. In the final four days, when the Obama juggernaut turned its Web firepower to rallying voters to the polls, supporters made three million phone calls to those in swing states. Did someone say "YouTube"? Well, people spent some 14 million hours watching campaign-related Obama videos during the campaign season--adding up to 50 million views. Finally, and most ominously for Obama's political or policy opponents, the incoming president is now armed with the e-mail addresses of 13 million supporters.

With the campaign having learned what kinds of results you get from social-networking sites, viral videos, e-mail lists, and text messaging, it's not hard to imagine that this administration will operate far differently than its predecessors. Sure, it's not clear what shape it will take: how much YouTube, how much social networking, how many e-mail blasts from the White House or from proxies. Getting it right will be tricky. But clearly, Obama's recent "radio address" on YouTube is a taste of things to come. I spoke yesterday with Thomas Gensemer, managing partner of Blue State Digital, the company that set up the social-networking tools for the campaign (and which supplied the numbers above). He said, "My biggest outsider claim is this: The way the campaign helped inform critical decision makers of the value of digital assets means [that these assets] will have a significant role in the ongoing administration."