The White House has said on 24th January 2011 in Washington that US President Barack Obama will answer questions from YouTube users in a live event on the video-sharing site next week. He will be having live interaction on YouTube at 2:30 pm (1930 GMT) on Thursday, two days after he delivers his annual agenda-setting State of the Union speech to a joint session of the US Congress.
Last year also after his speech he conducted a 40 minutes interview with YouTube users and it was one of the moves of Whitehouse to engage with the common men. It was very successful last year.
Usually Senior White House officials are to answer questions at the White House website at WhiteHouse.gov submitted through Twitter or Facebook immediately following the State of the Union speech. The White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs will be answering questions from the public on his Twitter feed, @PressSec, before the address.
The initiative of Google-owned YouTube is welcomed by the public and YouTube said that Obama’s speech and the Republican response will both be streamed live. The questions of public to Obama can be submitted at youtube.com/askobama. YouTube said video questions are “highly preferred” and should be about 20 seconds long.
However YouTube has clarified that Obama will respond to the questions that have received the most votes from users of the site. Last year, one of the most popular questions concerned legalization of marijuana as lobbying groups — as they have done with previous open Internet forums — mobilized their supporters to flood YouTube with submissions.
The President Obama is fond of Internet and he used it effectively during his presidential campaign for organizing, fundraising and communicating and the White House has a channel on YouTube in addition to its presence on Facebook, Flickr, MySpace and Twitter.
It is happy news for the people who wish to interact with Obama.
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