The summer months saw a sharp drop in user interest in Wolfram Alpha, the online "computational knowledge engine" that calculates everything from planetary distances to cholesterol levels and generates (from the topics it knows) customized charts and graphics not available from general search engines. In the peak days after the May 15 launch, traffic soared to around 2.8 million daily visitors--but then hit a trough of 200,000 in July, according to the company. But now, with traffic now drifting back toward the 300,000 mark, the site is pinning its hopes partly on a new application programming interface (API) to leverage the online tool in websites, online publishing, desktop applications and mobile devices. An iPhone app will be one of the early examples.

It will be interesting to see how third-parties leverage the depth of Wolfram Alpha's knowledge in math, science, geography, and engineering beyond the simple search-engine-like interface that now confronts users. Right now, the engine has a ways to go to meet the goal of its brainchild, the physicist Stephen Wolfram, to "make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone."

The rebound toward 300,000 visitors may reflect a back-to-school bump, with students seeing the engine as a great tool for doing their math and science homework, according to Schoeller Porter, who heads up Wolfram's API program. (Indeed, the engine is throwing a homework day event next week to promote further such use.) "We had an enormous launch with a huge amount of interest and a lot of traffic. The traffic fell off, and we fully expected that; it was a nice relaxation for us, and it let us fix code and put in new features," he told me this morning. "It followed a kind of---I won't say overhyped--but a well-hyped launch." Wolfram Alpha is built on Mathematica--Stephen Wolfram's comprehensive repository of mathematical and scientific formulae--and fed by datasets curated by Wolfram Research.

President Obama is still looking for a national chief technology officer to help forge U.S. technology policy, but today he did something that could have even more impact, at least in the short run. He announced the appointment of a chief information officer to help drag the federal government's vast and ossified computer infrastructure into the Facebook age.

Obama's pick is Vivek Kundra, 34, who is currently chief technology officer for the District of Columbia. He will be expected to expand uses of cutting-edge technology, but also to make sane investments. Judging by his track record, citizens might soon see some concrete changes: new ways to access public information, new online tools for communicating with federal agencies, and access to new databases. One way to reform federal IT would be more effective information sharing between agencies (did anyone say CIA and FBI?). The federal government certainly has a sorry history of white-elephant IT upgrades, including a bungled FBI computer overhaul well described in this Washington Post story of a couple of years ago.

Kundra's plans already include a data.gov website to provide the public with vast amounts of searchable government information. All this will be a vast leap in scale from the current offerings of his DC website, which has been an interesting test bed for making local government more responsive and transparent. There, you can do things like download maps of Wi-Fi access spots and view city contracts. He also launched an apps for democracy contest that resulted in residents suggesting Web and phone applications that would do things like provide better access to crime reports. He's even been pushing to allow people to pay their parking tickets via Facebook. In a statement, Obama said, "I have directed him to work to ensure that we are using the spirit of American innovation and the power of technology to improve performance and lower the cost of government operations."

Candidate Barack Obama built up something unique in its scale and power: a 13 million-strong email list of supporters, together with data on their beliefs and history of campaign volunteerism.

As the presidential campaign progressed, his staff proved adept at dispatching specific and geographically targeted instructions to the masses: "Call ten people in Ohio today", "Donate $5 by midnight and anonymous donor will match it", "Get out to vote" These were jobs anyone could understand. And the goal was straightforward: get the man elected.

Now we have a president who is trying to mass-email his way to a legislative victory. President Obama--more accurately, his campaign organization, now using the moniker "Organizing for America"--is deploying that list to rallying support for the stimulus package.

But you can almost hear the behind-the-scenes debate: How, exactly, is Lucy in Des Moines supposed to take action on an $800-odd billion stimulus package? What would you have her do--join in an email campaign aimed at nailing a particular Congressman to the wall? And how can we expect Frank in Utica to understand a massive bill whose contents are murky even to the people who are supposed to vote on it? Should we sell him on the fact that the stimulus bill would allow him to deduct the sales tax on his next Ford F-150?

No, the outcome has been a more nebulous campaign. Organizing for America provided a place for people to post their stories of recession angst, and encouraged them to spread their stories around to each other. This morning's missive from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe explained: "Ordinary people are telling the real story of the struggles and pressures families are facing right now. They drive home the importance of this recovery plan and the need to put it into action immediately."

The site promises: "As the recovery plan takes shape, we'll be checking back in with some of those who've shared their stories here. They'll report back on their progress, and on the progress of America's recovery from this crisis."

It can hardly be said that any of this has a bearing on the actual legislative process. There are no simple and concrete actions to take, and no way to measure its efficacy. So why bother? For one, it keeps his supporters engaged, if only by giving them a place to vent. And more importantly, the act of story-sharing will mean yet more email address accrue to the Obama organization.

So maybe next time, when Obama pushes his next bill, we'll see something more focussed. "Frank, remember when Lucy sent you her story of recession woe? Well, here's a list of ten people to call right now. We need your help nailing Congressman Jones to the wall...."