Obama post-State of Union Google+ hangout tonight

Tonight the President of the United States will rely on the power of Google+ Hangouts to address the people of the internet. This address has previously been billed as a post-State of the Union talk, but now appears to be more of a question and answer session in which questions submitted via the web have been voted upon by non-White House officials – voted upon by Google users, in fact. These questions will be answered by the President one by one in turn while the world watches from their computers, smart TVs, and mobile devices at home.

This Google+ hangout is slated for 5:30PM EST and the questions, again, are said to have been picked based solely on their popularity on Google through their pre-set ratings system. There will be a set of five pre-selected American hangout partners joining in on the conversation at some point during or after the questions to add questions of their own as well. This event had previously been slated for 9PM EST but has been moved back to the much more reasonable 5:30PM for all you pre-supper lovers of conversation with the leader of the Western world.

This isn't the first time Obama will call upon the "Fireside Chat" vibe initiated first by Franklin D Roosevelt, and it won't be the last. You'll see an amplified amount of social interactions between the President and the internet now that we're inching closer and closer to the 2012 elections in which Obama will, indeed, be up for re-election. Now we've got to see if that Newt Gingrich lunar base has any salt – that might be a zinger on the other side!

Tune into the +The White House Google+ page at 5:30PM EST to see the whole event go down!

[via Vic Gundotra]