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The inauguration of Barack Obama has already brought about significant change in this country and Facebook in partnership with CNN were able to cover the inauguration in its entirety. Millions of people logged in to share the experience with their friends around the globe. As of 1:15 pm Eastern, Facebook and CNN posted some impressive results:
- Over 600,000 status updates were posted through the CNN.com Live Facebook feed
- There was an average of 4,000 status updates per minute during the inaugural broadcast
- During the inaugural speech there were over 8,500 status updates per minute
- Obama’s fan page has now surpassed 4 million fans and 500,000 wall posts
It was an impressive showing and being able to share the experience with friends worldwide was most definitely a first. During the stream, I noted that we’ve come a long way since the beginning of internet video in that there appeared to be very few buffering issues. Part of that may have been due to CNN running a separate stream for their online coverage domestically.
Internationally, viewers that were able to log in to the site were able to watch the same stream that CNN television viewers were watching in the United Sates. This was most definitely an amazing experience, highlighting the power of real-time communication combined with live television streams. I believe this is truly the interactive television of the future.
Were you able to log in to the stream and watch the inauguration live? What were your thoughts?
This is the most impressive example of the groundswell that I have ever seen. The world is forever changed!
It was simply amazing…Obama’s speech and the ability to share it with so many people on Facebook and Twitter. I think Facebook helped to rally so many Obama supporters to get him elected and I think he’s taking the lead in keeping technology cutting edge. Obama’s team will continue to use Facebook and other social media marketing to reach us and those of us will enjoy a hugely interactive experience.
I look forward to what will happen in the next 4-8 years and how it will be shared online through Facebook and through live streaming. Our “lifestream” will never be the same again Nick!! Thanks for a great site, btw.
Ed Bisquera
I tried watching the CNN feed around 10am with no success. The status image just kept spinning with a message that my video would load shortly, but 3 hours later and it never did. Others claimed flawless performance, so maybe I just didn’t log on soon enough.
Great concept though. It would have been interesting if they’d had this going during presidential debate season!
What I’d love to see is how this compares to the status updates per minute, for example, during a normal day. I also wonder how much of that would have happened organically.
Today was amazing!
I definitly can’t imagine the next 4-8 years, I would like just to read a post by Nick written as we were in january 2010.
For me it was the first global event involving mainstream micro-blogging through the facebook statuses. It was absolutely great, and worked perfectly with a variety of friends all over Europe or Canada.
I had the same end-result as Ed — a spinning wheel of death. I finally just gave up. I wonder how widespread that problem was? We have short attention spans on the internet… if CNN can’t grab viewers immediately — if they make someone “wait in line” to view a live stream and then when you finally get “a spot” and end up at a screen that says your video will be loaded shortly and it never comes — the user is going to go somewhere else (ustream would be the prime example of the day).
My problem with CNN and Facebook’s partnership is that fact that many school systems and other workplaces block access to Facebook (along with other social networking sites). This caused problems for people on these networks wishing to view the inauguration.