Election shocker: people view long Obama speeches online

Well, looking at the numbers, people are turning to substantive speech in long form online.

Jon Stewart captured the gist; people are shocked that Obama's treating us like adults.

Micah Sifry and Andrew Rasiej capture the issues in an article in Politico:

So far, Obama's videos have been viewed more than 33 million times on YouTube--and that's not counting partial views, since YouTube only reports a full viewing as a "view." His campaign has uploaded more than 800 video clips, and adds several more a day.

If you just look at his ten most viewed videos, here are some astonishing facts:

• The average number of views for these top ten is currently more than 1.1 million (nearly double the average from a month ago!)
  
• The average length of these ten videos is 13.3 minutes.
  
• There have been nearly 3.9 million views of the longest of Obama's most popular videos, his "A More Perfect Union" speech on race in America.

In an age of sound bites, that's pretty impressive; in particular, his speech on race is maybe genuinely historic.

The Times is talking about the youth aspect in this regards.

Big things, they're happening.

Comments

[Danny Howard]

Who ever predicted that the Internet might actually increase the public's "attention span" forty minutes beyond the "sound bite"?

I'm looking forward to the McCain-Obama debates . . . I heard a bit of the Keyes-Obama debates back when he ran for Senate and they were good natured and somewhat philosophical, since Keyes was pretty much a token opponent relishing in a chance to air his particular views, and Obama just took him at face value and engaged . . . good stuff.

Thanks, Craig.

-daniel