Update: Here for the 2012 VMAs? You can watch from the audience's perspective here. Be sure to check out our full digital guide for this year's awards and stay plugged into Mashable for the latest highlights and viral moments!
The MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) kick off with the pre-show at 8pm ET tonight and the actual ceremony at 9pm.
MTV is taking the show to the social web, they tell us, by allowing visitors to comment on a live video stream using Facebook Connect - in short, you'll be able to post your commentary to your Facebook page and see what other Facebook users are saying about the event.
Twitter won't be neglected either: Justine Ezarik has been hired as the official VMA "Twitter Correspondent" for the show, and a "Twitter Visualization" tool will track live Tweets about the awards and display them in a very unique way on TV, the company tells Mashable (we've yet to see the visualization app, since it won't be available until tonight.)
MTV.com: Red Carpet Footage and Live Show
MTV appears to have its act together this year, with a live "highlights" stream and Facebook commentary, as mentioned above. That word, "highlights", suggests that MTV will still try to draw a large TV audience by limiting what web viewers can see. Also note that the stream won't work if you're outside the US.
In fact, the red carpet footage is already live and embedded above, courtesy of MTV.com.
More Live Streaming: Livestream.com on the Red Carpet
Want more red carpet footage? Livestream.com tells us they'll be livestreaming the red carpet action from 7pm ET to 9pm ET. We've embedded the player above, and the stream is also available on the Livestream site.