International Law

President Obama, You?ve Got to Watch Your Back Online

By wjg

Internet streaming is still not ready for prime-time. Sir, I thought you should know. I’ve taken a few minutes today to watch history in the making online. After all, you’ve harnessed the Internet for your presidential campaign. You’ve used social networking sites and blogs to spectacular advantage for fund raising and getting the vote out. You are a young guy, with-it, Internet-savvy. You’ve got a lot of Facebook friends. You must be cool. In that spirit, I thought I’d try to keep up with you and watch your inauguration speech online. Boy was I underwhelmed. It felt like 1999 all over again, like I was on a dial-up connection, gamely trying to do something… revolutionary.

No matter which “live” feed I tried, they all were the same. Likely there were massive user demands on the big news media sites today, but I must report, be careful, they were not up to what we’ve come to expect from you online. President Obama, you need to know that you have not been well served today online by the conventional, television-based media. All the choppy, lagging or downright dead “live” feeds of your inaugural speech were a drag. If the medium is the message, then you should watch your back.

President Obama, I hope you can get on this problem, maybe tonight after work, hopefully not spending too much time on tech support while you’re fixing the rest of the world.

Full post as published by GenereuxLaw on January 20, 2009 (boomark / email).