Whitehouse.gov Streaming Obama’s First Press Conference Live in Flash!
This is really cool and I had no idea it was coming. The White House is streaming Obama’s first Presidental press conference live using Flash. You can also get the feed on Hulu.com. What’s very cool is that the stream requires Flash Player 10, so they’re using the latest. This is a really big win for Flash, and I’m stoked to see that the official site of the White House decided that Flash was the best technology for the job. I’ll update the post as I get more info and hopefully later with viewership numbers.
Update: Some info on the Hulu stream. It’s also repurposing the Fox News feed. They’re using Akamai as the CDN and they didn’t do much in the way of marketing, so it sounds like a bit of a test run – on the Hulu side. There should be final numbers later on, and I’m hoping to get more info on the Whitehouse.gov side as well.
Posted in Adobe, Flash Video
February 9th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
I guess the stream is finished now but it looks pretty bad when the http://www.whitehouse.gov/live/ gives a 404 error instead of providing some useful information, especially considering that the link is so prominent on their home page. Oh, I know, I’ll check Hulu. Oh wait, Hulu blocks all visitors from outside the US regardless of whether it’s copyrighted content or not. Are you guys running some sort of secret state over there?
February 9th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
That’s cool and all–I was totally uninpressed with the quality they were pumping down (not Flash’s fault). But… seriously, how is this a “win” for Flash? When, a few days ago, the fact that the inauguration used Silverlight was characterized in Adobe blogs as a veiled payola scheme with Bill Gates stuffing Obama’s pockets?
February 9th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
@Phillip, Any time I can get a government site streaming Flash, I call it a win. Mainly I’d like to find out more info on why people choose Flash versus Silverlight for video streaming. It seems like it’s kind of a crap shoot now but Adobe clearly has a revenue stake with FMS. When someone chooses Silverlight over Flash I’m just curious why.
@Darren, yeah, I have no idea what’s up with that. And I feel your Hulu pain. It sucks to leave the country because I get no Hulu love. Hopefully they’ll change it.
=Ryan