Archive of thenextweb.com

Internet celebs like ObamaGirl help blogTV grow rapidly

Written on 27th October 2008 2 COMMENTS
Ayelet Noff, Next Web WebTipr Israel

About a month ago, YouTube had announced that they do not plan to enter the live streaming market. However, many broadcasters have a real need for a platform that allows them to broadcast their live shows. Shaycarl who is one of the most popular and subscribed to users on YouTube looked for such a platform and found it on Israel-based blogTV. So have others. In the last 4 months, 28 of YouTube’s 100 most subscribed to vloggers and 80% of YouTube’s contributors (who are not YouTube’s Media Partners) are broadcasting at least twice a week on blogTV.

Livestreaming another way for self-expression

Leading internet celebs such as Sexphil, Charles Trippy, Lisa Nova and Shaycarl are all broadcasting their own popular blogTV shows now. blogTV has also announced today that even ObamaGirl will be starting to broadcast on their site every Tuesday and Thursday evening. This is major for blogTV considering that elections are just around the corner. In the last year, the company’s founders have reiterated that live streaming is the next type of user generated content that end users will turn to just like they are currently using Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. Live streaming is yet another way for users to express themselves.

Monetizing livestreams

Yet this whole story is not just about user generated content for blogTV. The company is also monetizing this content. Fifty of blogTV’s top broadcasters are internet celebs which enables the company to sell ads in these spaces at premium prices of $10-$12 CPM. These are considered to be very high prices for a user generated site.

Leading player in the live UGC arena

blogTV is growing very rapidly. In fact, Quantcast shows that blogTV has more page views in the United States and around the world than uStream.tv. This makes it a leading player in the live UGC arena. In September alone, blogTV hosted over 20,000 different broadcasters that broadcasted their own unique shows. blogTV is reporting that in each of the last 3 months they had over 30% growth.

Each its own niche

There are a few different players in the live streaming arena and each has found its own niche. uStream and Justin.tv are dominating the TV broadcasting niche whereas blogTV has captured the UGC live streaming niche. So if you feel like you have something to say to the world, get on blogTV and say it. If not, you can still tune in to all the interesting content that other users are providing. You won’t be disappointed.

blogtv, Broadcast, broadcasters, charles trippy, internet celebs, lisa nova, live streaming, obamagirl, sexphil, shaycarl, ugc live streaming, user generated content, vloggers

2 Comments »

Torrent-like live streaming invented in the EU

Written on 20th July 2008 3 COMMENTS
Joop Dorresteijn, East Asia correspondent

Torrent like live streaming invented in the EU Do you have an event that you want to cover live, but you lack the budget to cover bandwidth costs? Researchers from 21 different European countries have developed software that can stream video over a peer-to-peer bittorrent network, an open source initiative that might change the way we stream video on the Internet.

Broadcasters have little bandwidth costs

With the BitTorrent zero server approach, receipients supply pieces of the data to newer recipients. It allows everyone to broadcast a live stream to thousands of people with just little personal broadband usage. Broadcasters can save millions by using the technology, although someone has to pay for the bandwidth on the end, if the broadcaster sends their data out by torrent the ISP is covering the costs.

Improving the BitTorrent protocol

Dr. Ir. Johan Pouwelse, researcher on Peer-to-Peer technology at Delft University of Technology said to torrentfreak: “To be relevant we remain BitTorrent compatible… However, traditional BitTorrent is not compatible with streaming. We solved this problem by dropping the tit-for-tat protocol and making something which is more generic, which we call Give-to-Get.” The Give-to-get protocol streams the video to users that also give broadband, rewarding “nice users”.

Try it for yourself

The live streaming technology is still work in progress. For now, the project has received a €19 million ($30 million) grant from the EU this year, and the BBC is currently testing the new BitTorrent streaming format, and you can try is out for yourself as well. Download the SwarmPlayer (Windows, Linux) and click on this Live Bittorrent Webcam Feed to tune the SwarmPlayer into Amsterdam.

Torrent like live streaming invented in the EU