Obama Wants to Answer Your Questions in a Google+ Hangout

Never one to ignore new social networks, U.S. President Barack Obama will participate Jan. 30 in his first Google+ Hangout in which he’ll respond to questions from YouTube users. 

Obama — who in 2011 took part in town halls for Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter audiences — will speak live at 5:30 p.m. ET on the White House’s Google+ page.

People can submit questions about any topic via video or text using YouTube’s Moderator tool, and Obama will answer the top-voted ones. YouTube also will invite a select few to join the Google+ Hangout, which will come on the heels of Tuesday’s State of the Union address. Viewers can watch the Hangout on the White House’s website, Google+ page (which launched Jan. 20 and now has more than 17,000 followers) or YouTube channel.

This isn’t YouTube’s first brush with the president. In January 2010 and 2011, YouTube’s head of news and politics, Steve Grove, moderated interviews with Obama using crowdsourced questions. Last year, users churned out more than 140,000 questions.

But this year, YouTube is leveraging Google‘s almost seven-month-old social network during an already eventful election year. The presidential Hangout may be seen as Google+’s most historic to some, rivaling the Hangout featuring Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Llama. 

Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney have also done Google+ Hangouts.

“This year when we started discussing a post-SOTU YouTube interview with the White House we threw in the new availability of Google + Hangouts,” a Google spokesperson told Mashable. “The White House agreed — it seemed like a great new use of technology to connect people face to face with the president.”

Obama joined Google+ on Nov. 23 and has accumulated nearly 300,000 followers as of Monday. Obama’s entry onto the platform added to the president’s already extensive social media presence. He also recently joined Tumblr and Instagram.

In April during Facebook’s town hall, Obama replied to questions about economy, innovation and technology. Twitter’s town hall in July generated more than 90,000 tweets and 61,000 questions. And LinkedIn’s town hall saw Obama discussing jobs, the deficit and economic growth.

What would you ask Obama? Sound off in the comments.

by Brian Anthony Hernandez