By lunchtime today (20th January) CNN had broken its all time record of live video streams (5.3m). It had served 13.9m globally.
CNN is one of thousands of sites carrying the Obama inauguration video which features on endless media sites, blogger sites and even some company sites. Hundreds of millions of people around the world have watched the webcast.
For the first time the web has been the main delivery platform for video of a major event and has turned a US occasion into a global one. The event is as much about the virtual audience as it is about those there or watching on TV.
This is a revolution in communications with major lessons for communicators in both political organisations and companies in the UK. Whether it’s a government announcement or a corporate customer event, organisations need to plan it for both the live and online audiences. Broadband speed connections mean everyone can now take part wherever they are.
This has major cost implications for companies who might otherwise fly staff or customers to events. At a time of tighter travel budgets this is a way to engage a much wider group of people.
It also has a major green benefit. Web video company BroadView commissioned research in 2008 which showed that a viewer of a webcast saved up to 17000 times the carbon of someone who attended the event being webcast.
Giordano Capuano
(Marketing Manager at BroadView)
Office: 020 7261 0303
Mobile: 07964247918
www.broad-view.com