President Obama.
President Obama.

President Obama will deliver his sixth State of the Union tonight at 6 p.m. PT, and if you’re watching online, the White House digital team has built some neat features designed to enhance your viewing experience.

In addition to a live stream — which you can watch here or below — that will show on-screen graphics related to what Obama is talking about, the White House has built a “river of content” for those tuning in at WhiteHouse.gov/SOTU.

Below the live speech, viewers can interact with a bevy of real-time, updating widgets that include interactive information like state-by-state or demographic data points and other related material.

“You’ll generally get the kind of real-time experience usually reserved for sports events and technology company product demos — and that content will all flow onto the page while you’re watching the speech,” wrote Nathaniel Lubin, Acting Director for the Office of Digital Strategy.

The “river” is responsive, so you can use your tablet or smartphone easily. In fact, the White House recommends using the “river” as a second screen for those watching the speech through a TV.

Here’s a bit more from Lubin on the technical side of the new features:

For those who want to dive into the technical side, we’re building the new tools with “websocket” technology. Websockets use a back-end connection to users’ browsers to “push” content as we publish, rather than asking browsers to repeatedly “pull” content. As a result, we can deploy material in real time, during the speech, without jeopardizing the performance or security of our platform. We’ve also reincorporated tools that we used last year to new effect, including an implementation of Twitter’s API (Tweet Fetch) to curate a custom real-time social media feed.

Obama is expected to discuss his new broadband initiative tonight, among other tech-related topics. He will also sit down with YouTube stars Bethany Mota, GloZell and Hank Green after his speech for interviews.

If you’re watching the speech on MSNBC or CNN, watch for Microsoft Bing’s technology in use. Both cable companies are using the Bing Pulse real-time audience survey tool — albeit in “completely different ways” — to provide live viewer feedback about the speech.

You can watch Obama’s speech below, or read the text here.

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