Recent Twitter feeds:

Britney Spears: Spending a rainy day with my boys watching movies. They are really into Kung Fu Panda and Madagascar 2. <3 Britney

Lance Armstrong: Buenas Dias from Oaxaca. Eating some breakfast then gonna head to the Trek/Livestrong team mtg before the race.

Barack Obama: We just made history. All of this happened because you gave your time, talent and passion. All of this happened because of you. Thanks.

Snoop: damn long azz day…bout to see the kidz and the wife….and chillzz

The Editorial Board: Writing about the popularity and benefits of technology and the web.

What are you doing?

With the rising popularity of sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, it’s no surprise we are seeing more and more public figures, politicians, athletes and celebrities join in on the fun.

It seems obvious that for a lot of organizations, political figures and celebrities, these popular social networking sites offer the incentive of new and beneficial opportunities for public relations, attention and exposure.

But why else are so many people jumping onboard this new and exciting, nonstop, ever-evolving multimedia, multi-interactive, multi-presence, digital train of online goodness?

It’s all about transparency.

For example, if you visit the recently revamped whitehouse.gov Web site, you might be surprised to find a newly designed, reasonably interactive, easy-to-navigate home page.

According to a section on the site explaining the reasons for changes in design and content, Malcolm Phillips, director of new media for the White House wrote, “millions of Americans have powered President Obama’s journey to the White House, many taking advantage of the internet to play a role in shaping our country’s future. WhiteHouse.gov is just the beginning of the new administration’s efforts to expand and deepen this online engagement.”

The whitehouse.gov site offers everything from blog postings, videos and slideshows, to official statements, weekly addresses and, of course, the agenda.

According to the site, and Phillips, “President Obama has committed to making his administration the most open and transparent in history, and WhiteHouse.gov will play a major role in delivering on that promise.”

Other sites are also offering similar opportunities for transparency.

Many celebrities are using the popularity of the web to create things like Facebook fanpages, Twitter accounts — even entire YouTube channels.

Even the U.S. Congress can’t seem to resist the benefits the Internet brings, with their own recently launched YouTube channel and individual Twitter Feeds.

As Editorial Board members, we encourage this growing trend of transparency, and even though we recognize the obvious public relations benefits that many of the up-and-coming popular social networking sites offer, we still can’t help but appreciate what these sites, and the people that use them, do in terms of informing the public and making such information so easily accessible to the average internet junkie.