Queue Up the Next Social Media Town Hall -- On Google+ Now

The White House plans to follow up the president's Tuesday State of the Union address with a "State of the Union interview" with the president conducted on Google Plus next Monday.

The White House just signed on to the search giant's new social networking site on Friday though President Obama's reelection campaign has been using the site for about two months now.

The interview will be conducted through Google Plus' hangout feature, according to a White House blog post. Some of the people who've submitted questions for the president through the White House's YouTube channel will be invited to join the hangout and, presumably, the event will be live broadcast on YouTube as well.

The administration is touting the Google Plus event as "the first completely-virtual interview from the White House." It's not entirely clear what that means. It could signal merely that the president will respond directly to questioners' YouTube videos rather than having them keyed up by a moderator. In past social media Town Halls, conducted through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, Obama has typically shared the stage with a moderator who introduced and sometimes picked questions. If questioners are able to ask their questions directly, including followup questions through the hangout feature, that would be a more significant innovation.

Several agencies have dipped their toes into Google Plus, especially since the site published a special guide for political agencies and candidates. Agency participation on the site still drastically trails Facebook and Twitter, though, and the site has been slow to catch on among the larger public.

Several theories are floating around about why the White House chose to join Google Plus now. O'Reilly Media's Alex Howard suggested officials were likely drawn by the hangout feature, which not only creates the opportunity for events like Monday's town hall but can also be streamed on the Whitehouse.gov video page for interested citizens who aren't part of the Google Plus network. The Los Angeles Times suggested the president also may be trying to keep pace with Republican rivals on the site.