Barack Obama brings the presidency into the online world. His weekly addresses to the nation will no longer only be broadcast on radio, but also as a video message on YouTube and other social communities.
Here is the first YouTube addresss of a president to be, recorded on November 15th, 2008:
Many expressions are used to describe the online policy of the new president, such as “Fireside Chat 2.0″ and “the YouTube president”.
Barack Obama’s channel on YouTube – with almost 2000 videos uploaded -is already extremely popular – and the first weekly address (above) had been viewed almost 500.000 times only a day after it was published. It certainly is an indication that more people will be watching the president’s speeches than ever before, as ReadWriteWeb points out.
An interesting detail: The option for users to comment on the weekly address video has been disabled on the YouTube video. Is it an indication of the huge challenges the new presidents office will have in managing the online presence?
In any case – distributing the weekly address on YouTube certainly is a strong symbol of change, Mr. Obama’s main buzz word.
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