What Change Should The Web World Expect Now That Obama Has Won?

Now that we know that Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States, I think everyone is making their guesses on what we should expect him to do in every field of the politics and economy. And while it is quite easy to promise whatever you want during a presidential race, the presidency itself is usually a little different thing where multiple factors will influence the politics – and those factors will hardly be limited to the President’s good will and understanding of what is right. Often the platform does not translate 100% into the real actions.

So I wanted to start a discussion here about how we should expect Obama presidency to influence the internet industry and various related businesses – especially since the United States is rightfully the world center and the home of all emerging internet technologies.

The first thing I think I should mention here is that internet will most certainly be one of the key focuses for Obama as he fully realizes the power of the world wide web – after all, it was online where his campaign was the huge success and where his followers demonstrated their support in the most prominent manner. Barack Obama was the first presidential candidate to make this amazing use of the internet for fundraising, for organizational tasks and, obviously, as a powerful communications tool as well.

Logically, I think it will be safe to assume that Obama must be fond of the internet as a powerful tool that has helped him win and will probably be more than happy to promote the tool’s growth even further. Besides, now that he and his team have such a good command in online campaigning, Obama must be interested in strengthening the internet further to use it efficiently in the next campaign.

The general principles of Obama’s platform when it comes to the technology and internet are well known and can be accessed right on his website in a dedicated section. These principles include network neutrality, deploying a modern communications infrastructure and investment in R&D to have American goods and services competitive in the international markets.

These general principles will eventually transform into real actions with time. For example, we should probably see Obama administration taking actions to subsidize broadband internet coverage in rural areas (where there are still multiple users of dial-up internet) to actually bring the communications infrastructure that should be the most advanced in the world into reality.

Also most experts expect the focus of presidential administration switching from the military industry to all the things that are on the verge of the latest and greatest technologies – green technologies, nanotechnology, biotechnology and most certainly internet as well. I also think that the promised investments in science and R&D will also lead to building a favorable environment for various venture capital-backed projects, especially those in the fields Obama is a big fan of, like green technologies.

As for internet businesses, I think it is obvious that many of the largest web corporations (Google CEO included) have already supported Obama for quite a simple reason: web companies will feel much more comfortable working in a country that values innovation higher than weapons. Yet if Obama sticks to his promises, many of them will also have to face increased taxes – and this may be a problem for them. But since they still show support to Obama, I believe that they expect that state-supported scientific efforts and R&D along with the promised governmental support of American businesses abroad will compensate for the higher taxes.

These are the things that I think are safe to predict right now. But of course it is quite understandable that the first thing Obama will need to dig deep into will be coping with the financial crisis that he will inherit from the Bush administration. And only once the situation more or less stabilizes in economy we can expect the new president to continue with the measures he promised to undertake during the election campaign. So we will obviously have to wait for some time to see promises transforming into reality. In the meanwhile share with us your own ideas on how Obama presidency will influence the WWW in the comments below.