While 1.8 million people attended Tuesday's Inauguration in person, the rest of us found ways to experience it online.  Whether at work, home or on the road with our smartphones, major Web sites provided means, (although struggling to deliver a smooth experience), to get the U.S. and the rest of the world involved.    

Nielsen Online just announced U.S. web traffic figures for Tuesday's Presidential Inauguration.  Coming in at the No. 1 most visited site was CNN, with 11 million unique visitors for the event, followed by MSNBC at number two with 10 million, and Yahoo! News at number three with 9.1 million.

Below is a list of the top 10 sites ranked by unique audiences on Inauguration day according to Nielsen's report.

Watching footage on these sites was obviously the most popular way to experience the inauguration, but other companies were able to offer a more interactive experience.  

Qik, an online live video streaming provider, set up an event page where users could stream live video from the Inauguration for people to view on Qik.  The style of the videos being very much citizen journalism like. Out of the humble 35 who actually participated in Qik's page were famous names like Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore. 

Twitter, a micro blogging site which allows you to post instant short blurbs about where you are or what your doing, reported 4 times the amount of tweet per minute on Inauguration day according to their blog. 

Hulu, a popular television on the web site, also streamed the Inauguration live.  They reported the event set a new record for Hulu in terms of live streams, beating out the presidential debates and the Palin/Joe Biden debate, which they also streamed.  Unfortunately they would not share an exact numbers of visitors.

According to Akamai’s Net Usage index, web traffic for major sites covering and streaming the Obama Inauguration peaked out at 5,401,250 visitors per minute.  This ranking in at number 5 in the index with number 1 being Nov. 4th, 2008, Election Day.  See below: