Godwin to the White House; YouTube deal near; Congressman, Twitter mixup; Clinton looks to the Web

A roundup of news from around the Web on Feb. 11:

The Municipalist reports that Bev Godwin, director of USA.gov, will become the White House's Director of Online Resources and Interagency Development. Which is….? The Municipalist doesn't know either.

Nextgov reports that the federal government is close to reaching terms on a deal to make it possible for agencies to set up their own fully-controlled partner channels on YouTube.

By the way, the General Services Administration is wondering whether people are really interested in seeing government enter the Web 2.0 mainstream, with YouTube videos, Facebook pages, etc. They are looking for a contractor to carry out a "citizen engagement survey." You can read their brief announcement here.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham wants her department to do a better job of leveraging the Internet to communicate with people around the world, according to NextGov, citing a Feb. 4 speech to her staffers.

Speaking of diplomacy, the Associated Press, via SiliconValley.com, reports that Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R.-Mich.), the top Republican on the House intelligence committee, "landed in hot water this week after using his Twitter page to update the public on his precise whereabouts while traveling through Iraq and Afghanistan." Whoops.

Finally, a last bit of news from Obama's swearing in: Network World reports that the law enforcement officials used a high-definition video system to keep an eye on street activity between the Capitol Building and the White House. Cool stuff.