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Facebook and CNN: The Power of the Social Web Revealed

This week Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. As several million people attended the inauguration in Washington D.C., Facebook and CNN invited the rest of the world to watch the moment online. Online visitors to CNN.com were able to use its video player to watch the live broadcast coverage of the event. We also saw what has be one of the most brilliant examples of the real-time web in action: next to the video, the Facebook status updates of those watching streamed by in the sidebar.

ReadWriteWeb Guide to Celebrating Inauguration Day

Millions of people followed the inaugeration via the Web; as Obama recently pointed out "you don't have to brave the crowds and commotion in order to participate in this celebration." We compiled a list of online resources to navigate the inauguration virtually. Included are Inaugural Week events, where to watch the Inauguration online, news coverage, and links to interesting and [we hope] fun sites. Although the event is over now, many of the links in our guide have archived content to enjoy at your leisure.

Whitehouse.gov: Looking Back at 12 Years of the US President's Web Presence

As the eyes of the world were focused on the pomp and circumstance of Barack Obama moving into a new role as President of the United States, Obama's Web team was hard at work - with far less fanfare - moving their Web property to a new address: whitehouse.gov, the official Web site for the President. And while, at first blush, the site may appear similar to Obama's President-elect site, change.gov, it is strikingly different than the predecessors who have occupied whitehouse.gov over the past 12 years. How different? In this post we take a look.

Is Twitter Strangling its Famous API?

The most extreme developers may find themselves left out in the cold.

Twitter watchers know that a large part of the service's use comes through its Application Programming Interface (API) and that's been a big part of what helped the young service grow. Now that the company has Britney Spears, CNN and Barack Obama among its ranks of users, though, developers seeking to push the limits of that API may soon find themselves no longer welcome.

Netflix Prize: Will the $1 Million be Won in 2009?

This week we started a new series here on ReadWriteWeb about recommendation engines. We identified recommendations as one of 5 trends to watch at the start of 2008; and that's even more so at the beginning of 2009. We also have a page dedicated to recommendation technologies in our stock presentation entitled What's Next on the Web?. In this post we look at Netflix; and in particular update you on the $1 million challenge that Netflix set in order to find 'the next big thing' in recommendations.

SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY

A Word from Our Sponsors

We'd like to thank ReadWriteWeb's sponsors, without whom we couldn't bring you all these stories every week!

• Mashery is the leading provider of API management services.
• Crowd Science gives you detailed visitor demographics.
• Rackspace provides dedicated server hosting.
• TaxACT lets you file your taxes online.
• Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server 3.5 allows you to create interactive social media experiences.
• Babylon is the world's leading dictionary and translation software.
• WildApricot is Membership Management Software.
• DEMO09 is the launchpad for emerging technology.
• MediaTemple provides hosting for RWW.
• VisualCV lets you stand out from the crowd when job-hunting.
• Eurekster is a custom social search portal.
• SixApart provides our publishing software MT4.

RWW Jobwire

The White House Names New Media Director

As noted above, the WhiteHouse.gov website saw major improvements this week - thanks in large part to the efforts of Macon Phillips, The White House's newly appointed New Media Director. One minute after the inauguration, Phillips posted an entry entitled "Change has come to WhiteHouse.gov" and introduced himself as one of several people who will blog on the site. In the post he says, "our initial new media efforts will center around three priorities: communication, transparency and participation".

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Web Trends

7 Online Things To Do To Help Obama Restore America

As noted above, this week we watched Barack Obama be inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America. Many have called Mr. Obama the Internet President because of the unprecedented way his campaign used the medium to raise funds, raise awareness, and ultimately outmaneuver John McCain. But what can we do now to help turn this country around? Read on for 7 things every one of us can do on the Internet to help Obama restore America.

Word Cloud Analysis of Obama's Inaugural Speech Compared to Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Lincoln's

When Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the US, his speech was widely praised around the web. There were quite a few concepts discussed that we suspected hadn't been a part of past inaugural speeches. What words were used most often? We ran the full text of the speech through tag cloud generator Wordle.net for one view of the event, and just for the sake of historical context we ran George W. Bush's second inaugural speech, Bill Clinton's second, Reagan's first, and Lincoln's first and second inaugural speeches as well.

The most common words in the Obama and Bush speeches were dramatically different.

RWW Live: OpenID

In the second RWW Live of 2009, we discussed a web standard that made big strides in 2008 and is being increasingly adopted by Internet companies big and small: OpenID. At the end of December, the OpenID Foundation announced its new Board - and we had several of those board members on the RWW Live podcast show this week. They were Scott Kveton and Chris Messina from Vidoop, Brian Kissel from JanRain, and David Recordon from SixApart. As usual, RWW Live was hosted by Sean Ammirati and featured the RWW regulars.

Download MP3

The Older You Are, the Better You Multi-Task (If You're a Woman)

New data released by Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI) gives us insight into how men and women engage in "simultaneous media use" - that is, surfing the net while also doing some other activity like watching TV. According to the study, it's more common for women to watch TV and use the computer than it is for men. What's more, women supposedly get better at this multi-tasking as they age.

SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY

Enterprise

Live Presentations: What an Online Office Suite Should Look Like

The current crop of online office suites from Google, Zoho, or ThinkFree is quite usable, but most of these products still feel very limited compared to the power of Microsoft's Office products. The newest entrant in this market, Live Documents, however, is trying to change this by developing a fully featured online/offline office suite. This week, Live Documents, which was co-founded by Sabeer Bhatia, who famously sold Hotmail to Microsoft in 1998, released its first product: Live Presentations. We think that the Live Documents suite, thanks to its easy to use user interface and support for offline editing, has the potential to play a major role in the online office suite market - especially once the team irons out the bugs and adds a word processor and a spreadsheet application.

Email us if you're interested in writing for ReadWriteWeb's Enterprise Channel.

SEE MORE ENTERPRISE COVERAGE IN OUR ENTERPRISE CHANNEL

That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

While various news outlets will be streaming the event, we've compiled this list of online resources to make it easier for those of you who wish to navigate the inauguration virtually. Included are Inaugural Week events, where to watch the Inauguration online, how to stay up-to-date with news, what to do if you're heading to DC, and links to interesting and [we hope] fun sites.

Sunday January 18

We Are One

Inaugural Week begins tomorrow at 2.30pm with a free and open to the public celebration at the Lincoln Memorial. HBO will broadcast the event at 2.30pm ET and Encore will run the footage at 7pm ET or, just watch it online.

Monday January 19

Renew America Together

President-elect Obama has chosen the eve of his inauguration and Martin Luther King Jr. Day to launch "Renew America Together," a call for Americans to make an ongoing commitment to serve their communities. Along with Vice President-elect Biden, Obama will be participating in service projects in Washington D.C. to honor Dr. King's legacy. To find an event in your community, visit USA Service and type in your zip code.

Kids' Inaugural: We Are The Future

On Monday night at 7 pm Michelle Obama and Jill Biden will host a free kids' inaugural concert at The Verizon Center to honor the children of military families. The concert will be broadcast on the Disney Channel at 8/7c, simulcast on Radio Disney and streamed on Disney.com. Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers are two of the artists confirmed.

Tuesday January 20: Inauguration Day

Swearing-In Ceremony

At 11:30 am, at the west front of the U.S. Capitol, the President-elect will become President Obama. For the first time ever, the length of the National Mall will be open to those wishing to attend the swearing-in ceremony. No tickets are required; download a map (PDF) here.

Inaugural Parade

At around 2.30 pm, the 56th Inaugural Parade makes its way down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House. You can browse the list of groups that have accepted an invitation to march at this year's event.

Neighborhood Inaugural Ball

The first-ever Neighborhood Inaugural Ball will take place at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center at 7 pm and include performances by some of the music world's finest. ABC will air the event live from 8:00 - 10:00 pm ET, and the main event will be linked to other neighborhood ball parties happening across the country.

Where to Watch the Inauguration Online

Live Feed and Virtual Flight over Washington DC

Harris Corporation is offering Internet and television viewers high definition views of the Presidential Inaugural Parade route and 3-D virtual views of downtown Washington, D.C. Harris is also providing a live video feed of the parade route from a webcam positioned atop the J.W. Marriott Hotel in the heart of downtown Washington. The feed has been live since Friday.

Presidential Inauguration Committee Web Site

Using Silverlight technology, the Presidential Inauguration Committee website will be live streaming video of the official swearing-in ceremony on its site. The swearing-in ceremony begins at 11:30 am ET on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

Hulu - The Obama Presidency

Hulu will also be live streaming the 2009 Inauguration, but until then you can watch past inaugural speeches (23) or check out the Obama Presidency page that hosts a variety of videos by category: Speeches and Press Conferences (11), Weekly Addresses (8), Commentary (224), Humor (52), Debate (1).

Ustream: Barack Obama Inauguration Day Live

If you want a more social experience watch live video on Ustream which gives you the option of interactive chat.

For more ideas on where to watch the inauguration online, take a look at Liz Gannes list over on NewTeeVee.

Staying Up To Date with Inaugural News

• Follow the Presidential Inaugural Committee on Twitter
• Follow the US Government on Twitter
• Follow the District of Columbia on Twitter
• Join Be Ready DC on Facebook
• Read the latest news on the Presidential Inaugural Committee's blog
• Check out the latest pictures on the Presidential Inaugural Committee's photostream on Flickr
• Watch videos from the Presidential Inaugural Committee on YouTube

Note: You can now download Obama videos directly from the ChangeDotGov channel on YouTube as pointed out yesterday by Anthony Ha over on VentureBeat.

If You're Heading to DC

Join Flickr in Washington

Flickr has just launched a Countdown to the Inauguration 2009 for people to share photos and video of the event. They are also hosting a meetup and are inviting Flickr fans to their party on the 20th from noon until 8 pm.

Participate in a 3D Photosynth of the Inauguration

If you've got a digital camera and are going to be among the millions attending why not help create a three-dimensional image of this single moment and be part of crowdsourcing history.

Get Free Wi-Fi from iPass

In a tweet earlier today, iPass offered free Wi-Fi to anyone travelling to DC this weekend. Read the tweet and send an e-mail.

Find Free Wi-Fi in Washington

Another useful resource if you're heading to DC, the Wi-Fi-FreeSpot Directory provides a list of places that offer free Wi-Fi.

Certain Roads and Bridges Will be Closed in DC

According to the Uptake blog, there will be significant road and bridge closures in DC and it just might be worthwhile checking out the Metro Rail system.

Interesting Inauguration Facts

Obama's People: 2009 Inauguration Gallery

Obama's People is a selection of photographs by Nadav Kander of Obama's advisors, aides and members of his incoming administration; 52 portraits in all. Watching the gallery, you'll hear Kander and Kathy Ryan, director of photography at the New York Times Magazine, talk about what happened during the shoot.

High Tech Traffic Information Solutions for Security Officials

On January 20, transportation and security officials will have a centralized, consolidated stream of traffic information and other data displayed on a single screen using software developed by the University of Maryland. The idea is to enhance officials' ability to monitor vehicular traffic, accidents, incidents, response plans, air space, and weather conditions.

FBI Security Support for Tuesday's Inauguration

Earlier today the FBI Washington Field Office issued a press release stating that a wide variety of tactical response vehicles will be available for Tuesdays Inauguration.
The vehicles include a state-of-the-art mobile command post, an armored assault vehicle, WMD response vehicles, evidence recovery team vehicles, and bomb trucks. More information and images are available on the site.

Fun Inauguration Facts

Hotels within a 50 mile radius of Washington DC booked out

According to the Uptake Vacations Blog, inauguration insanity has taken a firm hold over Washington DC hotels, all hotels within a 50 mile radius being booked out. Fortunately, it seems bars have been given the green light to stay open until 5 am and for restaurants to serve food 24hrs a day from January 17th - 20th.

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington worth $300,111,000

According to the Zillow blog, you would have to earn more than $53 million a year to afford the $1.48 million monthly mortgage that you'd be hit with if you were purchasing the White House. Take a look at who could potentially afford it.

A Poem for Barack

Shortly after the election of Barak Obama, Edna O'Brien "felt compelled to write a poem about this remarkable and unique man," according to The Daily Beast. You can listen to O'Brien read it or read it yourself.

The Obama Inauguration Speech Generator

A fun site as described by Adam Ostrow over at Mashable, the Obama Inauguration Speech Generator asks that you select choice adjectives, verbs, and nouns, which it then generates into a speech for you. The results can be quite interesting.

Useful Inauguration Links

• Inauguration page on the US Government site
• The District of Columbia's 2009 Presidential Inauguration website
• Inaugural Events 2009 on the senate site
• Armed Forces Inaugural Committee
• US Secret Service Inaugural Site
• Reflections on the heritage of Inaugurations past

Don't forget. If you've got suggestions for the new administration, you've still got time to share them in the Citizens Briefing Book. Tbe CBB will be open until tomorrow night (Sunday 18th January, 6pm). Submit ideas, vote and comment on others and the best ideas will be delivered to the new president after he is sworn in.

So, how will you be spending Inauguration Day?

The Photosynth project is being run in conjunction with CNN.com as part of their "The Moment" sub-site.

"We'll take your photos from every angle, combine them with CNN's professional shots, and produce what we hope will be an amazing experience that will be shown live on CNN. And you thought the Jessica Yellin hologram was cool! The synth will also be available for everyone to see on CNN.com."

To participate:

1. Take one photo of the moment when Obama takes the oath. If you have a digital camera with a zoom lens, take three photos (wide-angle, mid-zoom, full-zoom)

2. E-mail each photo as soon as possible to themoment@cnn.com (one photo per message, 10MB size limit). Don't forget to include your name in the message if you'd like to appear in the list of the contributors. Please only send in photos you took yourself.

3. Go to cnn.com/themoment to see all of the photos in our photosynth

The good news? Anyone with a digital camera can participate and take part in recording history. In addition to the Photosynth project, all of the photos will also be shared via iReport. Then, there's the bad news. If you want to see the finished work in all its glory, you have to have access to a Windows machine. Photosynth is only fully supported support Vista and XP currently. But they do offer an experimental Silverlight-based Photosynth player for other platforms. (I used the experimental viewer and it worked very well.)

If you're planning to be in attendance at the inauguration, bring your camera. Otherwise, stay tuned to CNN.com The Moment and Photosynth for the results of this experiment.

(Photo credit Joe Crimmings Photography. Used under Creative Commons.)