US election results: the whole world went to the Web

Michael Hedges November 11, 2008

The Web has reached a pinnacle. Last Wednesday morning, Web traffic exceeded 8.5 million visits per second. The world tuned in.

Every medium has reached its height during dramatic moments of shared experience. For radio the moment came between the crash of the Hindenburg (1937) and Winston Churchill’s broadcasts during the Second World War. Television’s moment came in 1961 as the world was gripped by US President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, continued through the ‘Who Shot JR?’ episode of Dallas (1980) and ended with the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster (1986).

The Web would devalue media’s social currency, predicted media watchers and social scientists. A planet of seven billion individuals, half being connected through one medium or another, would devolve into a ‘long tail’ of interests reaching infinity. No longer would media provide a shared experience.

CNN reported 250 million Web pages viewed on November 4th and nearly 5 million videos streamed. And, yes, newspapers sold more copies than they had in years.

French news sites recorded 25% increased Web traffic. Médiamétrie reported Web traffic between 0400 and 0500 CET Wednesday 340% higher than the average daily traffic for October. Akamai’s Net Traffic Index showed 8.57 million internet connections per second worldwide during that hour. In Europe, where it was early morning, more than 700,000 connections per second were recorded. A half million connections per second were recorded in the Asia/Pacific region.

The event tipping the internet scale was the hour announcing the end of the American Presidential campaign and, for many, a symbolic beginning as Barack Obama becomes the next US President. It was a shared media experience, and global. Media succeeded in bringing people together defying those who see the internet as hopelessly fragmenting.

The campaign for the US Presidency has attracted global interest for three generations or more. More than 4000 journalists from outside the US followed most if not all of this two year race for the world’s most powerful job. Many will return in two years time as the next election cycle starts.

Much will be different and much will be the same. The two finalists, Senator Obama and Senator John McCain, spent in excess of $1 billion. A significant portion of that was invested in media; ads on television, radio, in newspapers. A not insignificant sum was spent on Web-based activities, particularly by Senator Obama’s campaign. With young voters 18 to 34 years defying the four decade long trend of political complacency and registering their highest ever vote in a US presidential campaign, political consultants and campaign managers in the next election cycle will ignore the Web at their peril.

By appearance, television will continue to impact election campaigns. But that, too, has changed. Political attack ads – a style rarely allowed in Europe - failed to provide traction. Indeed, the style itself may have backfired. Or the result proves David Ogilvy’s first law: good advertising kills a bad product.

Arguably a turning point in the campaign was, indeed, a television event. NBC’s comedy show Saturday Night Live broadcast a segment parodying Vice Presidential candidate Governor Sarah Palin. That segment with comedian Tina Fey set YouTube download records around the world.

The Web’s peak traffic last Wednesday morning is notable. More records will certainly follow. By the time the next US presidential election cycle begins in earnest Web-based media will so dominate the media landscape the ‘old style’ will be but a distant memory. 

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