At the State Department, public diplomacy's new-media budget is still relatively small, $7.6 million annually out of a total of more than $500 million.

McHale said that she took existing initiatives — such as a Digital Outreach Team that promotes the U.S. viewpoint on Arabic-, Persian- and Urdu-language Internet sites _and was fashioning them into a strategic program.

Further initiatives are planned, but McHale said it was also important to move carefully. "You don't want to overwhelm people ... with information that they don't want," she said.

So far, though, there's an appetite for more.

Many foreigners, such as Mette Kliim-Due of Denmark, have connected with a White House page on Facebook more targeted to Americans and to domestic issues.

"Probably I wouldn't get to know that much more from the Facebook site than following newspapers and television," said the 47-year-old Danish wife, mother, cerebral palsy researcher and Obama fan.

"It's a little for the fun. You feel this kind of connection with the ones you join. I think that's the reason. ... It's being a member of a kind of community around the White House."

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