Flipping the Switch

» FedTimes: Transition Watch: More Noontime Changes

Get yer last glance at the old administration's web content, because it may not be there tomorrow afternoon. As a web tech, I probably find this part of the transition way too fascinating to be considered healthy.

Change.gov will become WhiteHouse.gov just after noon tomorrow, according to Agence France-Presse.

Many believe Change.gov to be emblematic of how President-elect Barack Obama will use the Web to advance his priorities of a more participatory and transparent democracy.

Over the next few days other federal Web sites will also start to look a bit different as dozens of familiar names, like Michael Chertoff and Condoleezza Rice, are erased from government Web sites and replaced with the new administration officials, like Janet Napolitano or Hillary Clinton.

The process is likely to be quick, said Casey Coleman, chief information officer for the General Services Administration. GSA plans to have all the names of Bush-era political appointees off the agency's site and replaced with acting career officials or Obama appointees within 48 hours of the inauguration. Many of the names will change a lot faster than that, she said.

With the exception of a Google Web cache, this may be the last time Bush-era agency appointees see their names on government Web sites. The National Archives and Records Administration will not do a Web harvest of pre-Obama sites, an agency spokeswoman said.

Personally, I find the Bush legacy section somewhat amusing and wouldn't complain if they just kept it up permanently as a case study in "How NOT to be President."

SIDENOTE: The ritual of Presidential photograph replacement, however, will be much, much more gradual