US President Barack Obama will participate in a special Google+ ‘hangout’ next week, just days after his pivotal State of the Union speech.

Google is inviting members of the public to submit questions to the President via its video sharing site, YouTube.

In a post on the Google blog, YouTube news and politics manager Ramya Raghavan says questions will be judged based on public voting, and participants with the best questions will be invited to join the hangout.

The move is a sensible one for both parties – Google is keen to promote its social network’s ‘hangout’ feature, one of the major advantages over main rival Facebook, while Obama will be happy to spread his message through an alternative medium, with so much mainstream attention on the Republican nomination campaign.

The hangout will take place on January 30 at 5:30pm EST (January 31 at 11:30am NZ time).

What would you ask Barack Obama? Post your comments below, or go here to check out the other submissions, or make one yourself!