When I was a kid, there was an ad campaign for financial services of some sort that do not interest a child, but I remember it to this day. The tagline was "When E. F. Hutton Talks, People Listen." I think there might be a new E. F. Hutton for this century. If I had a website, I'd really be wishing President Obama would mention it.
In addition to leading the country, that man drives traffic to a site like gangbusters. As I saw a headline about Obama creating a new internet sensation, I thought, "Again? Wow. He's good." The article turned out to be about recent, frequent traffic to Recovery.gov, the president's new website with a searchable database of how and where tax dollars are spent as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It's true: lots of traffic in a short period of time. People really do, apparently, want to know how this is all going to work.
I began to wonder how this "internet sensation" compares to the others in recent months around President Obama. Well, after his election in November, a whole lot more people scurried to the web to see what was in store for America and the world. The newly minted Change.gov website shot up like a rocket, practically overnight. Was that the biggest splash Obama made in the pool of web traffic? Nope:
When the historic event of America's first ever bi-racial president's inauguration happened, way more people went to Whitehouse.gov to commemorate the event. The man's residence sets mice a-clicking. And it's really no wonder. Barack Obama used the web, from YouTube to grassroots organizing, to un-precedented advantage. The internet is now home to the twenty-first century version of Fireside Chats. He knows it's a powerful medium, and he's taking full advantage. So, was inauguration day's traffic to the First Website the most impressive surge? No again. Election day and his mere name hold that honor:
