Says Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post: “Were if not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be the nominee and the president.”
Using interactive Web 2.0 tools (at BarackObama.com, MyBarackObama.com and other sites), Obama’s campaign changed the way politicians organize supporters, advertise to voters, defend against attacks, communicate with constituents, and get an army of non-paid volunteers.
Also, the President-elect took advantage of YouTube for free advertising. In a way, those videos were more effective that television ads because viewers chose to watch them or receive them from a friend instead of having their television shows interrupted.
Yes, for John F. Kennedy it was the television; for Barack Obama was the Internet.
(And by the way, the new President has a new blog, Change.gov. It runs on Expression Engine, and the site has been built by Blue State Digital. This company also created BarackObama.com. The rest is a mix of Movable Type, Expression Engine and their own code).
YouTube launches live-streaming service
YouTube plans to launch a live-streaming service in the style of startups Ustream, Justin.tv, Stickam and Mogulus on November 22.
However, since live streaming is very expensive and hard to monetize, it is not decided if it will be a service for paying customers only.
A YouTube exec said that if just 10 % of YouTube’s users adopted live streaming, bandwidth costs would go up 20 % to 25 %.
Akamai’s Net Usage Index
Akamai’s “Net Usage Index for News” registered the highest-ever traffic, measured in users per minute during the Election night. At 11pm ET, when Obama was declared the winner, Akamai registered 8,5 million visitors per minute.
Pay-per-view model on high school sports
Another local high school sports TV site has been launched. GrandStadium.tv is a joint venture between WorldNow and a sport consultant. What is interesting is the pay-per-view model: $9.95 to watch live streams of the games.
GrandStadium.tv joins a long list of local high school sports ventures including HSGameTime.com (Belo), HighSchoolPlaybook.com (Hearst), FoxHiLites (Fox), High School Football (Cox), HighSchoolSports.net (Gannett) and MaxPreps (CBS).
