Screenshot of U2 webcast on YouTube
There were so many things right with the U2 live webcast on YouTube tonight that I have hope for the world again. If you didn’t get a chance to see the webcast, click on the screenshot over there on the right — it’s been annotated with the things that struck me.
Some thoughts:
1. How many albums do you think U2 sold tonight?
Based on the Twitter stream at #u2webcast, it looks like it was truly a worldwide audience.
Brilliant example of leveraging the Internet to gain more fans and sell more albums. See, smart musicians in conjunction with smart organizations show us that the Internet is tool that is good for music. (Are you paying attention RIAA?)
I wonder what were YouTube’s share of the benefits. They must have spent a bunch on bandwidth.
2. Google is still a smart company.
Kudos to YouTube/Google for putting the Twitter stream front and center on the webcast page. They could have easily left out Twitter and just let YouTube commenters have the forum, but I’m sure they got much more exposure and reach by putting Twitter ahead of the YouTube comments.
3. On a personal note, this webcast brought back memories of my introduction to U2 via Achtung Baby, the first time I listened to Joshua Tree (and then listening to it over and over again), the anticipation (and honestly, slight disappointment) of Zooropa, and the U2 concert I went to at Staples Center years ago. Happy memories.
That U2 concert is easily in the top 2 live concerts of my life. The other was Radiohead at the Hollywood Bowl. I think U2 puts on a better show, but the Radiohead concert was downright transcendent for me (probably because of the weed).
Hi, I'm Greg. I'm a cofounder of Killer Aces Media. We publish community blogs like