I caught a few minutes of President Obama’s Google+ Hangout last night as it was streamed on YouTube.
If you’ve done a Google+ Hangout video chat before, you’ll be familiar with the format and this was no different. Except, of course, it was the President of the United States plus five lucky citizens chosen by +The White House to hang out live with the Pres in a carefully-controlled setting. Plus the millions of people worldwide who tuned in, as it were, to YouTube to watch and add text comments. Plus those doing the same on Google+, Facebook, Twitter… wherever they were online.
‘Tuned in’ is an apt descriptor as the immediate thought I had when I did just that on Google+ was “This is TV.”
If last year’s Royal Wedding that was broadcast live on YouTube was a demo of YouTube as a TV channel – a global one at that – that captures imaginations with a compelling event (content, in a word), then yesterday’s presidential Hangout is surely a clear sign that the channel just changed.
Why watch TV on a TV any more when you can immerse yourself, interact on the net, share your experiences and the recorded content itself, via any capable device that connects online?
Talk about disruption! No wonder the US entertainment industry – and that includes mainstream media like TV – likes things like #SOPA and #PIPA, to which +Clay Shirky‘s call to “pick up the pitchforks” is so compelling.
Reshared post from +The White House
Missed the Hangout with President Obama? Check out the full video here and let us know what you thought.
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Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.
5 responses to “YouTube: the global TV channel”
cool concept, getting interactive with the gov't. Unfortunately not interactive enough to tell him to shut up and stop spewing rhetoric. ;)
+Tammy Kahn Fennell he's a politician, that's what they do ;) Not that different to what you normally see in a political broadcast on TV. Yet I think this could evolve: I don't believe the traditional way of doing it is sustainable in this medium and with this type of participant (what we used to call "the audience"). Can't wait for the next one.
Well, call me an idealist but I think politicians could do better. And some are. But yes, kudos to the white house for trying something interactive like this. We all know google plus is going to stick around, just not sure where the mainstream adoptions will come from… and hangouts and things like this might just be the making of it.
+Tammy Kahn Fennell definitely with you on politicians doing better, and maybe events like this will stimulate a behaviour change. I bet it will.
I think I only now realise the potential power of Google+ Hangouts, Neville… do you have any further thoughts or reading on them?