Obama hosting a second 'fireside hangout' on Google+

Obama tweet
Obama conquered Twitter with this tweet; is Google+ next?

President Barack Obama has already proved that he's the king of social media, and on Thursday he'll hold court by hosting a "fireside hangout" on Google+.

Obama will answer questions in a Google+ hangout starting at 4:50 p.m. EST on Thursday, two days after his State of the Union address.

The State of the Union speech is a 200-year-old tradition, and in a blog post on Monday, Google framed the "fireside hangout" as the start of a new one.

The name of course refers to Franklin D. Roosevelt's famous radio addresses, called fireside chats, which took place between 1933 and 1944.

A new tradition?

Thursday's Q&A will mark the second time Obama has taken to Google's social network; the first fireside hangout took place more than one year ago in January 2012.

And Obama isn't the only one getting in on the Google hangout trend - Vice President Joe Biden and Domestic Policy Director Cecilia Munoz held fireside hangouts recently as well, according to Google.

Even NASA is taking part, with a Google+ hangout with International Space Station astronauts planned for Feb. 22.

Submitting a question

Obama's fireside hangout will be hosted by the himself and "a group of people who regularly discuss important issues of the day online," according to Google.

"The selected participants will ask the president their own questions - but we'd also like to hear from you before the Hangout," Google's News and Politics Manager Ramya Raghavan wrote in the Monday blog post.

To submit a question for the commander-in-chief, head to the White House YouTube channel and leave a video or text comment, then vote on the questions you'd like to see asked. The deadline is 11:59 p.m. EST on Wednesday.

For those anxious for the answers, head back to the channel or Google+ pages on Thursday to watch Obama's modern take on FDR's tradition.

Obama conquers social media

President Obama has proved to be the most tech-savvy president this country has ever known.

In addition to the Google+ hangouts, the 44th president has held Reddit "ask me anything" sessions, and his most recent campaign utilized Tumblr and Twitter to the fullest.

In fact, the now-famous "Four more years" tweet has become the most popular of all time, with 815,745 retweets and 303,801 favorites as of Monday.

No doubt Obama's endorsement of Google+ will provide a boost for the social network as well.

Michael Rougeau

Michael Rougeau is a former freelance news writer for TechRadar. Studying at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Northeastern University, Michael has bylines at Kotaku, 1UP, G4, Complex Magazine, Digital Trends, GamesRadar, GameSpot, IFC, Animal New York, @Gamer, Inside the Magic, Comic Book Resources, Zap2It, TabTimes, GameZone, Cheat Code Central, Gameshark, Gameranx, The Industry, Debonair Mag, Kombo, and others.


Micheal also spent time as the Games Editor for Playboy.com, and was the managing editor at GameSpot before becoming an Animal Care Manager for Wags and Walks.