The rise in stream on demand service has allowed for people to take their You Tube antics live. Internet moguls like Leo Laporte and Jason Calicanis have leveraged sites like UStream, Bitgravity, and Justin.TV to broadcast their shows live, allowing for much more audience interaction that podcast downloads. It's ingenious really, you create the content, with your own ads, and the streaming site overlays your video with their ads as well. All offer some different arrangements if you're interested in using the service to support full-time broadcasting.
Like anything else on the internet there is a fair amount of junk on there, and it appears that Justin.TV is planning to break the mold in live video on the internet, and begin selling pay per view channels. As of now, this is no challenge to your cable company. They aren't going to be showing the next WWE event nor are they going to be streaming the newest movies. According to an article on Mashable, the channels can charge as little as a dollar. I am not sure where they want to go with with this. It’s an intriguing concept, and I understand the need to innovate, but likely this is an idea that needs more incubation and cooperation for major content producers.
Fundamentally, most users accept ads as a trade off for free content. This comes at the consequence that people are far more averse to paying for content. This formula is almost exactly the same as cable's game against the network, so the offline analog is there. Content is going to sell this to the public, and I am not sure there is enough there. Tech news shows are the main purveyors of these services, but I am not sure they want to switch models this way. Mainstream content is still feeling its way out online with services like Hulu. I don't know if they'll even sign on to selling their live video feeds. Pay per view video on the internet may become a reality at some point, especially as more media comes online, but I feel Justin.tv is playing their hand far too early in the game.
Comments
Desperate for a biz model - ppv doesn't work on Internet because people are used to getting content FREE - isn't that why justin was called napster of video??
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