He used social media and the web unlike any other presidential candidate in history. Barack Obama’s incredible online presence turned into a grassroots movement culminating in his election as the 44th President of the United States. He was all over YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and the blogosphere.

But that was the campaign. Since then, he has promised to be one of the most transparent and accessible presidents in history, and social media was going to be central to achieving that goal. Now that it’s been a few months since his inauguration, we revisited his social media credentials. Not only that, but we put a letter grade on his usage of social tools.

So how does the President’s social media usage rank since he took office? Does the leader of the free world earn a passing grade?

During the campaign: President Obama was a prolific user of Twitter on the campaign trail. He joined Twitter all the way back in April 2007 and, up until the election, updated it about once a day with news, information, and videos.

Post-inauguration: From November 4th to January 15th, the @BarackObama account was dormant. Now though, his Twitter use has picked up, with a tweet about every other day or so. He (or his campaign) also know how to use their hashtags. It would be nice if maybe he’d @reply a person or two though.

Another note: the Obama team has been tweeting from @WhiteHouse, which is far more active than even Obama’s Twitter account.

Conclusion: Despite the two month lull, his Twitter use is solid.

Grade: A-

During the campaign: Barack Obama made history with his Facebook usage. He used his Facebook Page and his MySpace Page to reach out to constituents. He started it early and used it often.

Post-inauguration: While MySpace has fallen a bit by the wayside, his Facebook usage has been nothing but phenomenal. Not only has there been a nonstop news feed of videos, links, and pictures, but he is the #1 page on Facebook, beating out the likes of Vin Diesel and Michael Jackson (for now). The millions of users who watched Obama’s Inauguration on Facebook/CNN Live prove he’s a social networking rock star.

Conclusion: This is one place where he upped his game. You can’t argue with being #1.

Grade: A+

During the campaign: YouTube addresses, touching stories, and looks behind the scenes were common during the campaign. His YouTube profile was very active.

Post-inauguration: While he still uses his old YouTube account, really, you can find him over at The White House’s channel. Obama and his team post videos almost every day, with the most important one being his weekly video address, which is much more effective than a simple radio address.

He’s also stepped up his social media video presence with multiple live video press conferences and town halls.

Conclusion: How many other public figures are so accessible via video?

Grade: A

During the campaign: Both Barack Obama and John McCain had strong blogging presences. Barack also had My.BarackObama, which provided a lot of user-generated blog content, while John McCain was fortunate to have a prolific campaign blogger in his daughter, Meghan McCain.

Post-inauguaration: Obama has two primary blogs, his Organizing for America blog and, yes, The White House Blog. Both are updated very frequently by his team – and are transparent in who is posting and when.

Still, it’d be nice to see a post from Obama himself maybe once every month or two, but we understand that he has bigger fish to fry.

Conclusion: Great blogging presence, but would love to see his name as the author just a tad more often.

Grade: B+

During the campaign: Social media and social networking were such a huge aspect of his campaign. It was central to his grassroots movement, and his my.barackobama initiative was a stunning success. Clearly the best use of the web in a political campaign (Ron Paul doesn’t count – he still lost).

Post-inauguration: Let’s remember, this man is the leader of the free world. He has to worry about rogue states, nuclear missiles, CIA intelligence, broken economies, budget deficits, re-election, and probably things we don’t want to know about. Yet he has made reaching out and keeping constituents informed via social media a priority. It’s tough to argue that Obama isn’t the most accessible president in history, no matter your party affiliation.

Conclusion: Obama has gone beyond the call of duty.

Grade: A

Tags: barack obama, facebook, myspace, obama, social media, twitter

The web’s response to the passing of music legend Michael Jackson has been staggering. Social media was pounded with tributes last Thursday after the news broke, but next Tuesday could be a huge test for the entire infrastructure of the web, when the memorial for Michael Jackson will take place.

The tribute and remembrance of the late King of Pop occurs next Tuesday (July 7th) at 10:00 AM PT at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Beyond the 17,500 tickets that will be given away to fans and the millions more that will converge on downtown L.A., the memorial will be live streamed free via the web and media outlets across the world.

This event will almost certainly shatter records for the biggest single live stream ever, and could be one of the biggest worldwide media events in history. Will the web be able to handle it?

The splash page of the Staples Center

Although details are sparse, CBS News does a good job of breaking down the information currently available. Here are the key points:

- The memorial will occur at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. 17,500 tickets will be randomly drawn in an online lottery available until 6 PM PT July 4th. Only U.S. residents qualify
- 8750 names will be selected Sunday, each of which will receive 2 tickets to the memorial
- There will be a simulcast in the Nokia Theater
- There will be a free live stream on the Internet available to all. Details on how the stream will be distributed are currently unavailable
- However, we suspect that thousands of stream will be available from media companies and live stream services around the world

The demand was so high for these tickets that the Staples Center website has had trouble staying up, and in fact took down almost every non-essential image and menu to keep the website up. This could be a prelude to the worldwide response we’ll see next Tuesday.

If you remember back in January, there was another historic event that blew us away: the Obama inauguration. Here are some of the staggering numbers from CNN and Facebook.

- 200,000+ status updates through the Facebook integration on CNN.com
- 3,000 people commented on the Facebook CNN feed per minute
- CNN served 13.9 million live video streams globally in about 6 hours
- Don’t forget about the millions of other live streams and TV viewers that watched worldwide.

Now, throw all those numbers out the window, because Michael Jackson’s memorial is almost certain to utterly overshadow Obama. Not even Obama consumed 30% of Twitter and set traffic records at Yahoo.

With the world mourning and a specific time and place set for the memorial, we may very well see the entire web converge on this one event. There will likely be thousands of streams worldwide via platforms such as Justin.tv and Ustream (the latter of which has a deal with CBS to stream events like this one). It’s also certain that Twitter, Facebook, and the social web will be booming with commentary on the event.

How many people will watch Jackson’s memorial? Can the web’s biggest players handle the massive traffic that will ensue? Will there be enough bandwidth? Could this event be the single media event in history? The answers to these questions will not only be a testament to Jackson’s impact on the world, but may very well set records that will last in history.

Perhaps most of all, the web will allow people to come together to celebrate Jackson’s life, no matter who they are or where they live.

Tags: jackson memorial, justin.tv, michael jackson, ustream