It was a historic day for the United States, as President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama took part in the inauguration ceremonies in Washington. But for those who could not witness the event live, watching it via Internet was the way to go.

 

The record-breaking audiences in the United States have managed to overwhelm most networks, slowing some of them down by almost 60 percent, according to Keystone Systems, a company that monitors Internet traffic.

 

But despite some problems here and there, the Internet proved once again to be a reliable tool in spreading information, and the most efficient method to cover a historic event and spread it worldwide.

 

Millions of people chose to watch the event online, and websites such as ABC News, CBS News, Fox Business, USA Today and others experienced slower than normal traffic, according to Keystone Systems’ report.

 

Akamai Technologies also reported that it delivered a peak of over 7 million active simultaneous streams at noon on Tuesday. Robert Hughes, executive vice president of Global Sales, Services and Marketing at Akamai said:

 

In addition to the historic nature of the Inauguration, it is now clear that this event has driven unprecedented demand from a global online audience. Furthermore, he said they’ve witnessed record numbers of live streams.

 

The record number of viewers could also be explained by the great number of people working on Tuesday, forcing them to watch the events from their offices.

 

CNN reported over 21 million live streams starting from early morning. But due to the high number of visitors, CNN was also forced to put some of the viewers on a waiting list, although that did not appear to be a major issue.

 

All in all, the Obama inauguration was a media success, and people all over the world logged on the Internet to witness it.