14 DAY TRIAL // President Barack Obama's Inauguration ceremony was thus far the largest news event broadcast via video feeds by all the top sites on the web, and was watched by tens of millions worldwide. A partial reason for this was the fact that the midday ceremony couldn't be watched by many people, because they were at work. So, all major news sites increased their bandwidth, and provided real-time coverage, with some offering as many as 4 different perspectives on the Capitol, which the users could browse.
Some news sites included video streams directly on their front pages, a premier for them. Internet experts say that this was to be expected, especially considering the ample electoral campaign that had been conducted online by both Obama and McCain, and even on social media websites such as Facebook, MySpace, and others.
It was abundantly clear that future such endeavors would take a strong foothold in cyberspace, and the Inauguration ceremony was an opportunity for experts to test their theories. And considering that Akamai Technologies Inc., a company that provides video for many major websites, said it delivered the event to more than 7.7 million people, it goes without saying that they were right.
CNN announced it broadcast 21.3 million live video feeds globally in the time interval between 3:30 PM EST and 6 AM, on Tuesday. Such a number shows, among other things, the massive interest that people have taken in the inauguration of the 44thUS president, which marks many first in the history of the country.
"There's just a lively discourse on our Web site. It's very satisfying because our goal here is to make people feel connected to the party and to the events in Washington and to their government," inauguration committee spokeswoman Linda Douglass says.
Not everyone was satisfied, though. Because of the large strain that most website servers got, speed and site performances were down by an average of 60 percent, and even larger, in some cases. "There were so many pauses that I missed really crucial moments of the inauguration. I didn't expect it to be TV quality, but I definitely thought it would be a lot better than it was," 22 year-old student Lyndsey Lewis, who watched the ceremony before going to class, explains.