Internet Video Fails at the Critical Moment

It looks like Radio and TV wins over the internet!


Were you like many of us who thought they were going to be able to watch it on your computer? Mike Wendland, the technology reporter of the Detroit Free Press writes about how many of us were not able to see the inauguration over the internet.


At the crucial time - high noon, when Barack Obama took the oath of office as America's 44th President - the Internet failed its biggest test today, unable to deliver on its promise of providing live streaming video. Unknown millions tried to tune in for the noon swearing in service end but ended up blank screens. I tried them all - Freep.com, MSNBC, Fox, ABC, CNN, the New York Times, CSpan and others - and without exception, they all failed. After about eight minutes into the speech, I had sporadic luck with the Washington Post stream, which, despite hiccups, delivered the only available live stream I could find on my Comcast broadband connection. Judging by the running commentatary on chat rooms form others who couldn't get the video streams, my experience was the norm.

"Server busy"... "Too many viewers" ... "Try again, too busy"... "Stream Not Available" were the messages I most often received when I tried to watch the various sites in the moments leading up to the noon swearing in and the new president's acceptance speech. Read more...