U.S. Inauguration -stress test the web?

[wheel]

Was visiting some US discussion forums this morning and it looks like a) everyone is watching their new President's swearing in ceremony online and b) lots of companies taking steps to prevent employees from watching it via the web (setting up conference rooms and the like).

Is this likely to be a real stress tester for the web? That's a lot of streaming video.

[MatthewHSE]

I wouldn't expect this to be any more streaming video than some of the major sporting events, but I suppose it could be. I'm not watching the inauguration (I disagree with Obama on every single issue that I know of), but this is still an historic time and will probably generate unprecedented interest as far as inaugurations are concerned. But most people I know weren't planning to watch it, either because of work or just not being interested.

[edited by: lawman at 9:54 am (utc) on Jan. 21, 2009]

[wheel]

I'm on another (non-political, non-webmaster, but professional) forum and the political forum is off the hook. Folks are watching and posting, watching and posting :).

[ytswy]

Anyone else in the UK have problems with the BBC? I got in at 5:30 GMT and found their live streams (News24, both on their site and through iplayer) was telling me that there was a problem and I should try again later.

Everything else worked as far as I could tell, but the live service was out. Distinctly unimpressive IMO, although I don't know if it was a general problem. Ended up watching MSNBC.

[arieng]

Wow! I'm pleasantly surprised in the international interest. There are stories of people tuning in from all over the world. As an American, it is very inspiring to see the world pay this much attention.

[ytswy]

Well when you're in bed with an elephant and all that, old chap :)

Being serious though, a genuinely historical day. Whether history ultimately records this as a triumph or a disaster, it has made a huge impression. I've been hooked on Obama since his New Hampshire speech but I honestly didn't think it could happen; if nothing else I and millions like me have had to massively reassess our preconceptions of America.

[wheel]

There are stories of people tuning in from all over the world.

The media is liberal in the rest of the world too. Which means it's all anyone can get on television, anywhere. So there's not much choice really. Don't take it as too much of a compliment - it's being forced on us :). The media's wetting it's pants in excitement but when it's done, between a crashing economy, wars on multiple fronts, and a world in turmoil, no matter what his policies are there isn't going to be any easy - or likely even good - answers. The media's so excuberant right now, they might as well dress him up in a flight suit and hang a 'mission accomplished' sign behind him, like he's already solved all these problems :). I'm suspecting it won't be that easy.

I watched it for about 3 minutes myself. It was right up there with watching paint dry.

[weeks]

Well, Wheel, there were OTHER thinks on the web to watch and do, like your web site, for example.

But, nope, Barack Obama' election on November 4, 2007 remains the all-time bandwidth pull.

According to Akamai, today’s traffic might rank as the fifth highest. Here's the link to the stats:
[akamai.com...]

[Bentler]

I was in training all day but tried browsing news & checking e-mail on breaks, and all access was incredibly slow-- totally saturated bandwidth. I pretty much gave up and read up on C# instead.

[anallawalla]

In Eastern Australia it was 3 am, so I opted for my beauty sleep, but I taped six solid hours of the GMA coverage and hope to watch it sometime. There were two distinct events here that some might treat as one:

* The historic significance of the first black family in the White House and all that it will inspire.

* The change in the political party in power and its impact on the world.

Both are important to the whole world, as we are all impacted one way or another.

It's funny to read about the US news media as being "liberal" - ours are typically Lefties.