January 20th was a big day for the United States, because of the Presidential Inauguration. It was also perhaps the biggest day for online media, and it’s impact on mainstream audience. Let’s take a look at some of the key points:
- According to the Akamai Technologies, who powers video features for numerous sites, including CNN.com, UStream, and the New York Times, traffic “surpassed a rate of more than 2 terabits per second.”
- Akamai also stated that it was delivering more than 12 million requests per second during it’s peak.
Also of interest is that a majority of these streams were delivered using the Adobe Flash platform. However, the Presidential Inaugural Committee had broadcast the events using Microsoft Sliverlight. While this is still a valid boost for Microsoft, the wide acceptance of Flash by nearly every news outlet is a testament to it’s capabilities. The inauguration also raises an interesting point — viewership. While millions of viewers watched this on the computer because they were at work, the viewership numbers reported by the online networks are nothing but stunning. The 7+ million viewer number reported by CNN.com beats out many network television shows. Does this mean that web video is mainstream? Not entirely. It means that mainstream media’s content is still highly sought after. It still remains to be seen if independently produced content can attract similar viewers.
