Finally, someone who might actually understand the Internet will be taking charge of the thus-far lackadaisical government body that plays the largest role in spurring its growth.

The Washington Post is reporting that Julius Genachowski (pictured here) will be tapped to take on the always controversial job of chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Sources with knowledge of the situation also confirmed the appointment, which will be announced in the next few days, to BoomTown.

Genachowski has previously worked for the FCC as its chief counsel under former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt. But he is better known to Silicon Valley as a longtime Internet exec at Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI).

He is now a founder of a Washington, D.C.-based venture firm called LaunchBox Digital, which has invested in a plethora of unusually trendy Web 2.0 companies.

One of its investments, the social news aggregation service Socialmedian, was recently acquired by the German-based business networking site Xing for $7.5 million.

And Genachowski is also a co-founder and managing director of Rock Creek Ventures, another venture firm, and a special adviser at General Atlantic.

Perhaps most notably, he went to law school with President-Elect Barack Obama.

Thus, Genachowski worked the tech sector tirelessly for Obama’s election, along with organizing the campaign’s successful social-networking and online fund-raising campaign.

He was also clearly on the short list to be America’s first chief technology officer, which might be too light on policy-making and too heavy on pontificating for Genachowski’s tastes.

As top telecom and, really, Internet regulator, Genachowski will have a lot more power and even more on his plate, including the rocky shift from analog to digital television, now set to take place next month, as well as dealing with net neutrality and a range of other key Web issues.

But top of the agenda will likely be how to make real Obama’s promise to drastically improve broadband access across this nation and lowering prices.

The slow speeds and high costs are an appalling legacy of Washington regulators and politicians, who have lived too long and too deep in the pockets of big telecom companies.

That has made the U.S. exactly what Softbank founder Masa Son once called in an interview I did with him at a D: All Things Digital conference: the “Third World of broadband.”

Hey, Julius, you’ll fix that, right?

Is it just me or does the fact that President-Elect Barack Obama is broadcasting his weekly address on YouTube not seem like it should be the very biggest deal in the world?

Still, when an article in the Washington Post reported late last week that he would put his weekly Democratic address online in video–on YouTube and his own transition site, Change.gov–as well as the regular radio, the squeals from tech were louder than at a mall appearance by the Zac Efron of “High School Musical.”

While it is a first for the Commander-in-Chief, I am more depressed that it is a first–after all, skateboarding cats made it to YouTube eons ago–than utterly thrilled that he is doing it.

But, when it come to the glacial movement related to politicians and tech issues, disappointment seems to be a better stance than hope.

I could begin with the fact that the U.S. has poor broadband and wireless coverage compared with most comparable nations (Softbank’s Masa Son once told me in an interview that this country was the “third world of broadband”).

Ironically, the price of high-speed access ranks at the top, by really gross margins.

Or that the federal government remains unfocused on a number of important digital issues, from immigration to privacy to net neutrality.

Perhaps because of his more obvious use of Internet tools, from communicating to supporters to raising money to targeting voters, Obama has felt like the first true Internet candidate, well beyond the ultimately unsuccessful inroads made by Howard Dean in 2004.

And now with even more YouTube videos, the Twitters, a much more interactive Web site at Change.gov and, best of all, the possible appointment of a CTO for America, it has been a general lovefest that the Obama presidency has engendered from the Internet community, simply for the focus the sector is now getting.

And more interactive communications are promised, such as regular video interviews with senior members of the Obama administration.

“This is just one of many ways that he will communicate directly with the American people and make the White House and the political process more transparent,” spokeswoman Jen Psaki said to the Washington Post.

It’s not that BoomTown does not think this is a great thing, but to me, this kind of transparent communication should be as normal as it has become throughout the rest of society as a matter of course.

Also, it would be nice if the Obama videos were also distributed on many other video services besides YouTube, which is the largest, but owned by Google (GOOG), whose CEO Eric Schmidt is a prominent supporter of the new administration.

Still, the four-minute video that Obama released yesterday is a good first step, along with a previous one from transition Co-Chairman Valerie Jarrett, who recorded a two-minute video earlier in the week.

Both are below:

President-Elect Barack Obama

Transition Co-Chairman Valerie Jarrett