Round-up of DIY live video streaming services
The lowly webcam has been enjoying something of a renaissance of late,
aided by increased broadband penetration, improved streaming codecs,
more kit being bundled with webcam functionality (e.g. mobile phones,
laptops) and a mushrooming start-up economy, hungry for the next big
web thing.
Justin Kan, founder and 'star' of Justin.tv, must also take a share of
the blame/credit. Launched in March of this year, the 24/7 'lifecast'
streams continuous video from a mobile camera attached to Justin's cap
and has attracted a significant amount of media attention. Whilst the
concept isn't new (anyone remember JenniCam?) the services which have
sprung up enabling you to easily do it yourself are. Below is a
round-up of a few of the main players.
Stickam
http://www.stickam.com
Launched: February 2006
First out of the blocks (and actually predating Justin.tv by over a
year) was Stickam, which bills itself as 'The Live Community' and
offers a suite of tools including live video streaming via an
embeddable player. Stickam recently hit the headlines over allegations
that its parent company, Advanced Video Communications, also runs a
substantial online porn operation, which hasn't been viewed by
everyone as a particularly good fit with Stickam's predominantly teen
user base. The teen user base also helps explain the site's scrappy,
MySpace aesthetic and general incomprehensibility to an old geezer
like me. Definitely one for the kids.
Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: N
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: N
Design: 2 stars
Navigation: 2 stars
Features: 2 stars
Overall: 2 stars
Ustream.tv
http://ustream.tv
Launched: March 2007
Ustream.tv was the first of the new generation lifecast sites to
appear post-Justin.tv, reportedly bringing its launch date forward to
capitalise on the surrounding publicity. The interface is pretty slick
with a decent chat client and some nice extras such as a 'shout meter'
and live polls, set by the broadcaster. It's also possible to pause
the stream, which is cached until you resume playing.
Ratings: Y
Tags: Y
Comments: Y
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y
Design: 4 stars
Navigation: 4 stars
Features: 5 stars
Overall: 4 stars
kyte
http://www.kyte.tv
Launched: April 2007
Like Stickam, kyte is something of a hybrid service of which live
video streaming is just a part. Also in the mix are photos, music and
polls which can all be packaged up within your embeddable 'channel.'
However, kyte's key market differentiator is its mobile component
which, assuming you've got a compatible handset and a sufficiently
meaty data allowance, enables you to broadcast direct from your
handset.
Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y
Design: 4 stars
Navigation: 3 stars
Features: 3 stars
Overall: 3 stars
Operator11
http://operator11.com
Launched: April 2007
Operator11's USP is letting more than one person into 'the studio'
allowing the operator/director/net jockey controlling the video stream
to cut back and forth between various contributor feeds. It's an
interesting development of the single camera model which potentially
moves the medium nearer to broadcast TV, although it also serves as a
reminder that successfully editing video on the fly is a great deal
harder than it looks.
Ratings: Y
Tags: Y
Comments: Y
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y
Design: 4 stars
Navigation: 4 stars
Features: 4 stars
Overall: 4 stars
blogTV
http://www.blogtv.com
Launched: May 2007
blogTV isn't short on functionality but suffers from a somewhat
cluttered interface when viewed alongside the cleaner designs of
Ustream and Mogulus. It's 7,500 channels are grouped into nine
categories with 'My Life' predictably being the most populated. One
nice feature for producers is the ability to pick a co-host whose
video stream appears alongside your own with viewers able to
interchange the two using a slider.
Ratings: Y
Tags: Y
Comments: Y
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y
Design: 3 stars
Navigation: 3 stars
Features: 5 stars
Overall: 4 stars
Mogulus
http://www.mogulus.com
Launched: June 2007
Currently in closed beta, Mogulus focuses more on the production side
of live video, offering a fully featured browser-based 'studio'
(requires Flash 9) to finesse your broadcast. In contrast, the viewing
experience is pretty basic, eschewing chat, comments, ratings and the
like in favour of a more classically televisual interface (on/off,
mute, volume and, er, that's it). It even goes so far as to mimic
static as the channel 'tunes in'. It's certainly the least cluttered
of the sites discussed here and should provide a good platform for
them to gradually introduce more functionality. I've got five beta
invites to giveaway - mail me if you want one.
Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: N
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: N
Design: 5 stars
Navigation: 4 stars
Features: 2 stars
Overall: 4 stars
Veodia
http://www.veodia.com
Launched: April 2007
Veodia is a distributed live streaming product for embedding in blogs
and corporate sites and doesn't aggregate any content on its site
beyond a couple of sample videos. Unlike most of the alternatives
(which use Flash) it streams using MPEG-4/H.264. As a consequence the
embedded video lacks any social media features such as comments or
chat.
Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: N
Viewer count: N
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y
Design: 2 stars
Navigation: 2 stars
Features: 1 star
Overall: 2 stars
YouCams
http://www.youcams.com
Launched: Unknown
Like Veodia, YouCams' focus is on distributed live video (via an
embeddable widget) rather than aggregation, although it positions
itself as a facilitator of social networking chat rather than as a
provider of streaming technology.
Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: N
Design: 2 stars
Navigation: 2 stars
Features: 2 stars
Overall: 2 stars
mystreams.tv
http://mystreams.tv
Launched: Unknown
The ugly sister of the live video streaming family, mystreams.tv is a
UX disaster, plastered in large banner ads and forever opening new
windows. Avoid.
Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: N
Embedding: N
Recorded shows: N
Design: 1 star
Navigation: 1 star
Features: 1 star
Overall: 1 star
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