Obama Inaguration: Real winners CNN, Facebook

Barack Obama - VICTORY | The Bottom Rung The day after the Obama Inauguration and the dust is beginning to settle. All who witnessed it are excited for the future of America and for the first time in recent history, us Canucks were not using the US as a punchline. Hard to believe, but it’s true.

Like most working people, I tried to watch the inaguration online. Everything went as planned until about 11:30 when the interwebs slowed to a halt. That’s when I gave up hope and lumbered off to find a TV.

Today we’ve found out why. CNN served 21.3 Million live streams during the inaugration, a new record for any network. Not to be outdone, Facebook saw 1.5 Million status updates during the inauguration with up to 8,500 updates being written each minute during Obama’s speech.

That’s a huge win for CNN/Facebook and surely a winning combo for future high profile venues like this. As long as they get their technical shortcomings figured out, their webcast could become the gold standard for networks the world over.

I have to admit, it was cool to talk to all your friends from around the world while watching history in the making; something that’s normally a solitary activity (via the internet).

Update:

In case you haven’t seen it yet, here’s what the historic day looked like for the millions that showed up in person. Click the image to see it in detail. Apparently the satellite can pick up objects as small as half-a-metre (or ~1.5 feet for you Americans)