(CNN)  -- With many workers stuck at their desks during the late-morning swearing-in of President Obama on Tuesday, more people than ever went online to watch live video of the historic inauguration. A group crowds around a laptop to watch the inaugural events in Washington. News sites, including CNN.com, shattered records for viewers watching live streaming video online. And, sometimes for the first time, news sites carried video feeds on their front pages. About 7.7 million people watched the inauguration on Tuesday online at the same time, according to Akamai Technologies Inc. That likely makes the inauguration the single most-watched event in the history of live Web video, according to the company, which handles Web traffic for more than 150 news sites worldwide, including nytimes.com, Ustream, Viacom, WSJ.com and others.
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More people than ever go online to watch live video of inauguration
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Nearly 27 million people watched streaming video on CNN.com Live
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Many news sites crashed during online coverage
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Social networks partnered with news sites to increase traffic online
On @placeholder, some streaming-video watchers who were pushed into a temporary "waiting room" were shown this tongue-in-cheek message: "You made it!