Streaming the Inauguration

(Reuters/Getty Images)

It amazes me how far streaming video has come, and yet took so long to get here. Way back when, Free Range Media did a streaming webcast of GM's new roll out of automobiles for their dealers who were located all over the US. Set up and produced out of Raleigh Studios in California, it was one of the first corporate uses in streaming media. Also around that time (1999), Victoria's Secret held an online fashion show that crashed from all the traffic and barely held up better than one of the models outfits.

And today, I watched the inauguration with better clarity and audio than I remember getting on any of my old antenna based TV's. I also recorded it at home on the DVR, but this was LIVE. LIVE and clear and in the moment. Amazing.

I watched it on a co-workers PC that happen to have it up and streaming. But even then I had many choices around the campus.

Here is an email sent out earlier in the day:

Today is indeed history in the making. We will have several locations to view the inauguration today:

Tacoma Room GWP 320 8:00 - 11:00 a.m. (streaming)
Carwein Auditorium 8:00-12:30 (streaming)
William Philip Hall 12:30-5 (streaming)
CP 103 8 a.m.-1:00 p.m. (streaming)
CP 206C 8-11 (cable)
CP 331- 8-11:30 (cable)


Televisions 8:00-5 in the (streaming)
GWP Atrium, (streaming)
WCG Atrium, (streaming)
Mat oUWTpost 8:30-5 (cable)

Later they added even another.

Notice anything about the choices? Three cable outlets for viewing and a whopping seven for streaming video. And that doesn't include the eighth streaming venue added later or the number of desktops tuned in.

No wonder Apple is touting their new device as the Apple TV.

As of 11.45am Eastern, CNN and Facebook released these numbers.

-had served 13.9 million live video streams globally since 6am

-had broken its all time total daily streaming record (from Election Day) of 5.3 million live streams.