One week after Shri Modi’s historic Google+ Hangout, euphoria over his answers

steadily rising on the Internet!

 

Already over 555,000 viewers have witnessed the entire session and many more have

witnessed smaller clippings of the Hangout. In 7 months, President Obama’s Hangout

viewed by about 712,000 viewers.

 

Modi is doing a Reagan to the media. Several things stood out in the Hangout session on

31st August: Rajeev Srinivasan writing in Rediff

 

It’s been little over a week since Shri Narendra Modi mesmerized people from across the world in his historic Google+ Hangout session that was held on the evening of 31st August. But, the euphoria over the session and Shri Modi’s out-of-the-box answers has not reduced but on the contrary has only increased leaps and bounds. The Hangout made it to all leading news sites as well as blogs and was hailed as one that breached barriers of communication and changed terms of political discourse.

What is noteworthy is that within a week, the compete video of the Hangout has already been viewed by 556,136 viewers on the net. Furthermore, there are several smaller clippings that are available on the Internet that have together attractedmore than 200,000 viewers. These include clippings of each and every question with Shri Modi’s answers, clippings of what was covered in various news channels and videos taken by other people and posted on You Tube.

To put this in perspective, the Google+ Hangout session held by USA President Barack Obama held 7 months ago has drawn over 712,000 viewers. Thus, the number of viewers Shri Modi has drawn is about 7 days compares with what President Obama drew in 7 months!

This is precisely why Shri Modi’s Hangout has been seen as nothing less than revolutionary. Not only is he the first Indian public leader to join such a session, it is also for the first time that participants from across the world joined the Hangout. In case of President Obama, those who were asking questions were from various parts of USA (Texas, Detroit, California, Illinois, New Jersey) whereas those who joined Shri Modi on 31st August included people from Tokyo, New York, London and Qatar in the Gulf. Taking communication with the people to the next level, Shri Modi held not one but two Hangout sessions that lasted a little close to 2 hours. President Obama had 5 people join him while Australia PM Julia Gillard’s Hangout lasted for an hour.

The Hangout virtually shot through the glass ceiling on every count. The day of the Hangout saw a record 166,000 clicks of Shri Modi’s website (ww.narendramodi.in). More than 70,000 Tweets had poured in as the session was underway. People from 116 countries were glued to their TV’s, desktops and laptops as the Hangout was underway. Infact, writing in Rediff, Rajeev Srinivasan affirmed that in Shri Modi’s hangout he saw traces of what popular American President Ronald Reagan did to the media in terms of going directly to the people surpassing any barriers whatsoever.

Writing in leading news site Niti Central, Kartikeya Tanna wrote that Shri Modi has given the people a cause to celebrate. Firstpost covered the Hangout real time, keeping netizens aware of the action as it unfolded.

Close on the heels of the Hangout, Shri Modi’s Twitter following crossed the 900,000 mark and his Google+ following too shot up substantially. Incidentally, he remains the only Indian public figure to also use Google+ to reach out to well-wishers.