11th Hour Brilliance

What an amazing event we experienced this afternoon.  According to the Associated Press, more than 1 million people attended the inauguration in the National Mall – one of the largest-ever gatherings in the nation’s capital (there’s satellite images to prove it).  Once again, we have accomplished a peaceful transfer of power. 

More than ever, we had access to an abundant amount of information.  For instance, Michelle Obama looked stunning in an Isabel Toledo dress and coat, in “lemongrass”.  The dress alone sparked enough twitters, blog postings and even a Wall Street Journal article.  But, the information frenzy didn’t end there – Kodak was quick to mention that Malia Obama used a Kodak Easy Share M893 to click the pics of her dad during his inaugural address.  The twitterverse was also the first to point out that the fumble in the presidential oath was actually because Chief Justice Roberts, who was reciting from memory, cited the oath incorrectly.  

We also found out in real-time that Senators Kennedy and Byrd were both removed from the first lunch with the new President.  Senator Byrd was taken from the room because he was visibly upset after witnessing Kennedy, who was sitting next to him, have a seizure.  Senator Kennedy, who left on a stretcher, is reportedly doing well in the hospital.  The embarrassing part is that someone actually updated both Senators’ Wikipedia pages saying they had passed – it was quickly corrected.

We were given a blow-by-blow of the presidential parade, including when the Obamas decided to get out of the “Beast” and walk.  We quickly spread the word that – although the Secret Service reported no arrests from the crowd at the Mall – approximately 30 kids were waiting at D.C. police stations because they were separated from their parents in the mayhem.  We also watched as the Dow sunk below 8,000 on Obama’s first official day in office.

There was also a flood of statistical data, according to Mashable:

• There were 600,000 status updates posted through the CNN.com Live Facebook feed
• Facebook averaged 4,000 status updates per minute during the broadcast
• 8,500 status updates were posted during the first minute of Obama’s speech
• “Millions” of people logged into Facebook during the broadcast

And, Twitter saw 5x normal tweets-per-second and about 4x tweets-per minute, per the Twitter blog.  Overall, I must admit that Twitter did extremely well given this surge of traffic – they are definitely learning and improving with each major event.  CNN, which linked up with Facebook, set Web traffic records this morning with 18.8 million total online viewers.  They also served more than 1.3 million concurrent live streams before Obama began his address.  Overall, CNN broke its all-time total daily streaming record of 5.3 million live streams.

CNN also posted its full view of the inauguration using Microsoft Photosynth.  From here, you can view “the moment” from every angle, as if you were there live (actually, better…).

We also learned some new terms, new sites, and new IDs:

• Change.org was quickly (and seamlessly, I might add) transitioned to whitehouse.gov
• There is a new White House You Tube channel (youtube/user/whitehouse)
• And, a new Twitter ID (twitter.com/thewhitehouse)

Looks like Obama is planning to continue its social media communication plan.

Overall, extremely exciting!  Tell me, how did you participate in the inauguration?