First a bit of good news: Despite a spate of pre-wedding worry, the Internet didn’t collapse under the weight of Friday’s royal wedding.

But the mega-ballyhooed nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton did draw an impressive online viewing audience, with live streams available from most of the major media organizations, Livestream, Hulu and many other sites. The Royal Channel on YouTube, the official channel of the British Monarchy, was an enormously popular choice for online viewers, for both live and rebroadcast streams.

Exact stream numbers are difficult to pinpoint given the number of…

An interesting thing has happened to live television in the past year or so. It’s become social.

Using Twitter, and to a lesser degree, Facebook, traditional TV viewers have incorporated a “second screen” alongside their television sets, creating massive social events out of live TV specials such as the Oscars or Grammy Awards, the Super Bowl, popular weekly programs like American Idol, and even—in an odd DVR-era twist—commercials.

According to Twitter execs, during broadcasts of Fox TV’s huge hit series Glee, Twitter usage increases 30 times its normal average for the entire duration of the program. From personal experience, I…