CNN.com is partnering with Facebook for an application that will allow the community's users to watch President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration on January 20 while interacting with fellow social networkers.
Facebook members will be able to click onto a special CNN.com Live page to see the inauguration and other activities. Integration between Facebook and CNN.com will allow them to stay on the page and still be linked to Facebook.
CNN.com announced the Facebook partnership during a session at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Thursday.
A prototype of the page splits the CNN.com Live page into three major segments, with the familiar upper-left-hand video window showing the inaugural stream above four smaller video streams. The right side of the page is taken up by the Facebook personal status update and then, below, the updates for the user's friends.
In any event, CNN.com — and other sites — are bracing for a large amount of activity on January 20 as the at-work audience tunes in online during the day. It could be one of the highest, if not the highest, single video event in Web history. CNN.com is ready by building capacity beyond previous big events.
CNN said the idea came up on Election Night, when so many Facebook users went back to their computers and posted updates that expressed either happiness or displeasure with the results. Executives thought that Facebook and CNN.com could assemble a way to make that easier and enhance the interactive nature of the event.
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