"The President of the United States should build [an email] list and he should use it to talk to the American people when he wants their feedback or even doesn't want to interrupt their soap operas. That alone would bring the WhiteHouse.gov a giant leap from the past."

Kevin Thurman posts an interesting essay on Obama's transformation from net-savvy candidate to net-savvy chief executive. Thurman is a Democrat, but substitute "MSNBC" for "Fox News" and his logic works for a Republican president as well.

Another good point, and one that's true to the distributed principles of the net: "[H]ow does one office deal with feedback from 300 Million Americans[?]. The answer is use the whole government. The White House shouldn't be the only place that ideas are asked for - every Cabinet Secretary should aggressively participate in using the internet to get feedback."

Lots more at the link, including thoughts on the uses of the Obama and Democratic Party websites.

Related: Obama's email list tops 11 million names.

So how did this information go from the Democratic Party's best kept secret to an announcement in The Washington Post?

Because now, Obama's team wants everyone to know. The massive list of energized activists is the biggest stick Obama will carry in Washington.