How Did You Participate In The Inauguration?

Are you old media or new? Progressive or traditional? Were you present in DC or were you participating using TV and being online?

President Barack Obama’s inauguration was an interesting event, why? It wasn’t during normal evening showtimes when people would watch on TV, as a result, people found other ways to consume the event –even using iPhone apps. Secondly, although an American event, it has implications to the rest of the globe, it’s not just a limited audience.

In my world, I watched it at 830am at home on HDTV, while streaming other pieces on Ustream.tv. I watched Current TV (got annoyed with the hip hop music and ridiculous tweets) and turned on CNN. I was on twitter (see charts), chatting and commenting about Aretha’s magic bow and how to be yellow mellow, and was reading the hundreds of tweets coming in every 30 seconds on Tweetscan, Summize (it couldn’t keep up) and Tweetdeck.

Over on Seesmic, there were discussions from those who were watching –and it cascaded to many other social sites, at the end of the ceremony, I changed my Facebook stats to read “Jeremiah is mellow yellow” and received several replies in a matter of minutes –one from my kid sister, who says I’m old for using email.

Tell me how you experienced the inauguration? Did you use mainstream media? Was it a social event for you? Did you create your own commentary and share with others?

60 Replies to “How Did You Participate In The Inauguration?”

  1. It was a mixture of media for me. I streamed the proceedings on the BBC website through their well regarded iPlayer software. I was at my office desk at the time so having the ability to stream in such a way was great.

    Then later, I caught the bits that I missed with family on the Sky Plus Hard Drive box, on Current TV. I got annoyed by the constant tweets but it’s interesting that this was a combination of old media (TV/satellite) and Twitter (new media).

    To finish off, I bought an actual dead-tree newspaper as a momento of the occassion – that’s really old media!

  2. I took anything I could find — old or new media. But a huge highlight of my day was opening up my morning paper with my 4 y.o. son and seeing that GIANT, full page story on the 44th President of the U.S.

  3. Loved that CNN teamed up with Facebook. Though Twitter would have made more sense. Guess CNN’s not quite there yet so Facebook got to use their status updates once more before Twitter kills that form of online communication once and for all. Got a bit addicted to watching everyone’s statuses updating and commenting back and forth with friends and the work day suffered a bit in the morning.

  4. I tried to livestream it in class for my students but got interruptions and freezes at Hulu and could never access CNN streams. So disappointing to miss the sworn-in moment. Minutes later took them to a classroom with a big screen TV. I later checked on my iphone Ustream app and it worked amazingly. Video and audio are much better than webcast, much to my surprise.
    I saw this as a big win for mobile marketing.

  6. Watched it live on old-fashioned TV, with a Coke and a smile. No other media. Sometimes one has to just *listen*. Afterwards I hit a TeamSpeak server and discussed it with friends around the globe.

  7. I’m in Canada and caught it via the mashup of live feed and Facebook via CNN. I tried the CBC feed but it wasn’t as reliable as the CNN one. Also, kept an eye on the Twitter hashtag.

  8. Hey Jeremiah, interesting question!

    I’m an American working for a Dutch company in Amsterdam. At 5:00 pm Amsterdam time (11:00 am EST) several colleagues and I gathered around my boss’ TV and watched the proceedings on CNN. Between prosecco toasts and potato chips I emailed close friends and family using my blackberry.

    Afterward my boyfriend and I went to an Obama art party in a friend’s graphic design space where we celebrated, danced and contributed to a communal 6-foot high Obama portrait. Around 15 different nationalities were present. For the first time in years, people actually congratulated me for being an American. Lovely feeling.

    In the hours before and after the ceremonies I looked at several different online news sites for any other tidbit of info or glimpse of inaugural outfit (yes, I couldn’t help myself). More follow-up emails and Facebook messages.

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