Huffington post Live launches. A revolution in online broadcasting and an earthquake for traditional broadcasters.

Huffington Post Live (owned by AOL), a news broadcasting service of online publisher The Huffington Post, went live today. And it did so without fanfare but caused an earthquake amongst broadcasters. That's a video of Arianna Huffington's vision from 2010 which today she achieved.

"People want to be part of a story...not just consuming".

Promising 12 hours of video a day, 5 days a week initially, it intends to open us news by allowing Social Media comment and webcam interactivity. in other words, getting your views on the news. It's not just a video platform but a platform for engagement.

Rather than run pre-roll advertising or indeed banners, it asked founding sponsors to pay between 3-5 million usd for a guaranteed mention once every 2 hours and Cadillac and Verizon took up the offer. It's unlikely too that normal "ad breaks" will apply as they intend to "disrupt" traditional broadcasting models. And who'd doubt them.

Using Google hangouts for live chats, the whole sense is very engaging and with 100 professionals on their crew, it's a substantial attempt at online broadcasting.

Jonah Peretti, the co-founder of The Huffington Post was quoted as saying:

A couple years ago, we were trying unsuccessfully to sell social advertising to a market that only wanted to buy banners but things have changed dramatically since then. Now many agencies and brands are refusing to buy banners, companies that rely on traditional display units are suffering, and budgets are shifting rapidly to social advertising. One of our board members, who was initially sceptical of our decision to not run banners, recently said that “social advertising will be the biggest media business since cable television.” 

The feed (streaming) is perfect as is the overall look and feel. Have a look at the future here http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/live

It's a sensational breakthrough for news and publishing, never mind online publishing. You've possibly seen the birth today, of the world's biggest TV station although it's much much more than that. It's the world's biggest Social Media site too.

This has the potential to kill off traditional TV broadcasters as the audience migrates online and yet again, big broadcasters show no response. It is social Media Television (Twitter with moving pictures) exactly what a new generation want.

Time and time again we see large businesses who had it their own way for so long, ignore the web and just get eaten. What is this going to do to the TV audience? It's going to take their viewers globally, just like a Facebook.

Live video on demand.
It's here, it's extensive and it's a winner.