Tuesday 20 March 2012

Live Streaming. What it is and why Content is still king.






Content is king. Probably the greatest cliche in internet history. But for a reason, because it's true. 

The best way I can explain why, is to take you on a short journey of my experience going back 15 years. Only, 15 years which really is, yesterday. But I hope it might explain the transition to content.

What I'm trying to show (yeah, probably badly...) is the manner in which the web started and the stages since then to today's stage, content. It started as connectivity for the chosen few, then search, then web design, then social media and then video/live streaming. So by telling the history, I can explain why we are where we are. Or so I think, so here goes.

At that time in the late 1990's, me and a man called Tom Kelly set up an 'isp' - internet service provider - largely giving internet access to the domestic market, called 'Club Internet' (club.ie). We were second out of the box in Ireland following another isp 'Ireland-on-line' (iol.ie) which was a soundalike of AOL and had, 100 customers. Possibly then there were 300 people with email access - the killer app. I nearly knew them all personally.

It was all Cisco routers and the "new" Microsoft (1985 ships Windows version 1) and becoming largely MSDOS based, it was really about business/corporates scrambling to get a presence online then. Simple web design of 2/3 pages consisting of the classic "brochureware" with a huge 'contact us' button and nothing more. 

Even domain registry hadn't started so you couldn't promote your own site name as such. It was all sub domains (www.clubi.ie/xxxx). So it was www.clubi.ie/ulsterbank or clubi.ie/irishrail and hence the need initially for search. Mad isn't it? Mad that it's only 15 years ago.

So it was about getting content up in some shape or form and I recall doing two sites - one for RBS/Ulster Bank and the other for the national railway, Irishrail.ie - which brought us the envy of our peers. We actually made the front page of a national paper, me and Tom, as the new internet pioneers. Swear. 7 html pages and we were front page news.

Of course too, there was no room for content, because of no bandwidth and so a new surge came in bandwidth providers as everyone wanted to get on board. Which was the second surge - connectivity and bandwidth. A surge that goes on and you'll have noted The Virgin announcement this week of super fast download speeds. Bandwidth is now a competitive issue rather than an availability one, exactly the same as the business of hosting. Anyway.                 
                                              
            
I recall well the first ever internet exhibition in a small hotel in London where we took a stand. 20 stands maybe in total, largely selling modem technology-based products such as modems, routers etc  (!) and beside us a strange looking man starting a search business. After the show we went with him for a few beers and Jerry Yang asked us would we like to get involved in his new search business. "Search? search what? some of these people are crazy" we laughed and we stayed in touch with him for years after. Until of course Jerry got a jet after the huge success of his search Yahoo! It was the dominant search engine quickly.

See, we were true visionaries....doh.

Once bandwidth arrived and people got more access to the web, the growth was in web design (or web authoring it was called) bringing sites from 3 pages to 10 and this time with navigation! Bandwidth moved on from the 14.4 and supreme 56 modems over dial-up. Remember the dial up sound? I do. But this was the design surge - the ongoing demand as corporates sought out better, more comprehensive web pages.


There was so much activity of all sorts, we floated the business on Nasdaq in March 2000 - the first bubble. So did 26 others on the same day, all tech companies. Honestly. Our IPO was done by none other than Lehmans. 

So now there was a base of content (websites) and then along came interactivity. Websites became a bit dull to look at it. After seeing one set of annual reports & accounts on one site, you kind of get bored.


We started to look up to myspace, started in 2003 and sold to Murdoch/News Int for 530m USD in 2005. Yep, that much and that's 7 years ago only. We saw Bebo (supposedly 'blog early blog often') and blogging started too. Michael Birch started Bebo in 2005 and sold it to AOL in 2008 for, wait for it, 850m USD. 

But the web had become content driven and entertainment became a use. People wanted to share chats through IRC. Content. Share photos through Flickr and now the Facebook wall. Content. Share videos through YouTube. Content. Got into search with Google to find content. Share locations on foursquare. Content. Share thoughts on blogging, vlogging on Blogger.com, on Tumblr. Content.

Content had become the driver whearas email had been the cliched killer app to start it all.

And then came more content in the form of Social Media notably of course, Facebook which, as you probably know, was started by two twins in 2004...Ha. 

Social media is of course content sharing at its best. I won't go on about Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and so on but you get the point. Facebook is 8 years old and valued at 100 billion USD. The second bubble is coming and it's about content. Mashable (only a "blog" they say but it's more) sells last week for 200m USD. Blogging is real content too so that's going to have real value. Or video blogging, vlogging.

                               

So now that we've done all of that and got so used to clever web design (cool example is see www.takethislollipop.com), photo sharing, social media sharing, tv iplayers, ipads apps, video sharing... the next wave is live streaming sharing. Which is what we now do at Streamabout.

So what is live streaming? 
(actually that's the highest search term in our category currently "what is live streaming?". 250,000 searches last week so you get a sense of the interest).

It's taking events you're already doing - awards, dinners, conferences, press conferences, staff meetings, garden shows and so on, and then companies like us streaming them live globally online. Sometimes free, sometimes to generate revenue from the viewer paying.

You need production (filming) expertise, technology (4G/Wifi/Wimax and knowledge to bring the live feed robustly to a server) and a streaming backbone platform support (livestream.com, justin.tv, ustream.tv etc). So not something a corporate can do themselves.

As an aside, that's even changing as we speak.


You can stream for free on your Facebook page - imagine the interest and traffic that would bring - and YouTube announces 100 pro-channels for free in the US last week. After all, look at their slogan, "broadcast yourself". Google+ have 'huddles' and they won't be far behind since they own YouTube. A serious head-on threat to livestream and those backbones but it's because YouTube want content. They want your content to become a big TV online broadcaster. So it has value.

What's happening too is that you can create an event to generate streaming. In other words, don't wait for something to happen, make it happen.

Your own cookery programme from your ecommerce enabled Facebook page? No problem. Get your friends to pay to view and download your recipes. Or a former stock market buyer gives tips online? people will pay for that.

Or a former Advertising Agency guy? well, yeah fair point, it's not for everyone....

A show in February live streamed, got 321,000 viewers. Nope, it wasn't about porn, it was about coffee. Look at the success of Netflix and Amazon's Love Film as streaming. The story this week was about Amazons deal with The Discovery Channel. Why? Content.

(And I'm going to bet now that this is a play on Kindle Fire (E books) by Bezos. They're developing that device as a low cost ipad that gives all content easily. So now they're starting to accumulate content such as The Discovery Channel. Why else? Watch this space.) 

Last week's other story was also about buying content when Twitter bought Tumblr's biggest rival 'Posterous', launched 2008 again to give them a bigger focus on content. Nevermind the sale of The Huffington Post to AOL 315m usd last year.

Live streaming - not video - is the new content and what you need is an A to Z (filming to broadcast) business like Streamabout wherever you are. They're growing but there's only a few now. 

The second bubble is starting. Get your marketing into gear. 
Create interest in your site by providing better content and right now, that's live streaming.

It was only 15 years ago when it all started and boy has it changed.

But what hasn't is content and that old cliche, content is king.


Windows Version 1. It's been with us for 25 years and now it is an opportunity to do something great online and I have never seen it all change so much as in the last 6 months. It's now really at a hot pace.

Get thinking - get streaming - or get something else that draws attention and traffic. There's people out there getting ready to buy it.

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