Flash Video Powering The Presidential Inauguration
On the podcast today Coté and I were talking about the inauguration as an online event. There’s a ton going on. Almost every major site is going to be streaming the inaugural ceremonies. But there are many different ways people are doing it. For the most part, as you’d expect, it’s being done in Flash. Basically all of the major media sites – CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News, etc. – are all going to be using Flash. CNN is even going to be inserting ads into the live stream which is pretty cool. Oddly, just like the Olympics, the “official” site is going with Silverlight. But like we saw with the Olympics, I’m pretty sure most of the viewing is going to be done in Flash because ultimately the barrier to entry is so small, everyone has it, and Flash just works.
As I told Coté, I think this is going to be fascinating from a number crunching standpoint. With so many options to watch the video, where are people going to go? And how will penetration of the technology used to stream the content affect that? With the Olympics, there was just one way Americans could watch the event – with Silverlight – but for the inauguration, people will be able to select any news media outlet and any format they want. I think it’s going to be a great mini experiment in how much penetration really matters as well as how much the brand of various media outlets matter.
Anyone who has watched Hulu in HD knows Flash has fantastic quality, and the install numbers for Flash Player 10 have been amazing, so our ubiquity isn’t slowing down. The combination of innovation and ubiquity add up to a pretty ideal experience and I think the numbers coming out of the inauguration are going to show exactly that. Go Flash!!
Update: Hah, I don’t actually think this is the reason they went with Silverlight, but I thought it was funny:
To note: The list of donors to the inaugural committee does not include any contributors who list Silverlight-rival Adobe Systems as an employer. As we have reported here before, it does include several high-profile Microsoft executives, including CEO Steve Ballmer. A Microsoft spokeswoman has said, “These donations are personal contributions from the named Microsoft executives, and not representative of Microsoft the corporation.”
I am really curious to hear the real reason, so if anyone sees it, please let me know.
January 16th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Agreed. It’s no surprise that when there’s no “sponsored” video support, people use Flash video instead.
I just wish we had a better example to point out to people, though; 99% of Hulu’s content is restricted to the US.
January 16th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
When will they be publishing the next Flash Player Census Statistics? I haven’t seen *any* numbers on FP10’s uptake
January 17th, 2009 at 6:57 am
@dusty: it will be 99.9% as always, as in any paid report they do. the more you pay, the more people uses your technology. sarcasm mode off.
January 18th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
your technology partisanship makes me sad. Seems more and more you have lost the even sidedness w/ silverlight that made me respect your writting so much not just 2 years ago.
January 19th, 2009 at 11:28 am
@Dusty, I think they’re coming soon. I saw some preliminary numbers recently.
@Michael, This is my Adobe blog. Where I talk about Adobe things. And I think it’s bizarre to do a press release for something like this.
Call me when Silverlight does something interesting again. Hopefully that will be version 3.
=Ryan
January 19th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Still no support for Flash 10 in 64-bit IE on Vista x64. CNN’s flash movies don’t play in the 32-bit browser on Vista x64 either. So I guess some of us will watch the Silveright version.
January 19th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Reinstalled Flash 10 again in 32-bit IE and it finally works on CNN site. Might have something to do with flushing cache too.