San Francisco - It was the first internet inaugural. With interest in the inauguration of US President Barack Obama at an all time high across the entire planet, many people turned to the internet to experience history in the making.

CNN reported that it served some 18.8 million video streams of the official inaugural ceremony, easily beating its previous record of 5.3 million streams which it set on election day in November.

The cable news channel said it would have served even more if its servers had not been sporadically overwhelmed by the traffic. At one point during Obama's speech, CNN served more than 1.3 million streams simultaneously, the company said.

Contributing to the record viewing was a link up with Facebook which allowed users to update their status and post comments as they were watching the video stream.

Other sites also notched record numbers: MSNBC. com said it had delivered 9 million video streams and more than 80 million page views, while microblogging site Twitter reported five times as many posting as usual. (dpa)