Georgia crisis sees surge in demand for live TV over broadband
August 20, 2008
Image via Wikipedia Viewing figures for Russia Today’s live streaming service have increased ten fold during the two weeks of fighting in South Ossetia.
20 August 2008
Viewers spent an average of 25 minutes a visit watching Russia Today’s live coverage unfold on the Livestation service.
Viewing for all the Livestation live channels, which include BBC World, Al Jazeera English, Euronews and France 24 increased significantly during the two weeks, but Russia Today’s figures significantly outstripped the rest.
According to Livestation CEO, Matteo Berlucchi, the figures suggest a change in viewer behaviour.
“It is becoming clearer by the day that Internet users are increasingly turning to online live broadcasts as their first port of call when looking at important news stories developing around the world.”
He says the simplicity of consuming live TV online has removed some of the main barriers to following live news events.
“With no need for satellite dishes pointing in the right direction, set-top-boxes, smart cards and expensive subscriptions, people can now watch what matters most to them on their computers anywhere in the world.”
“Add to that, the choice of channels, available at the click of a mouse, means that viewers watching live TV over the Internet can benefit from the different perspectives offered by the leading broadcasters.”
“Being able to access different versions of important stories quickly and easily is an invaluable asset for all who really care about the credibility of what are being told”, he said.
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LiveStation 2.0.9 Now Available on Mac OS X, Linux Next
August 12, 2008
I reported on Saturday that LiveStation was about to release a pre-release version of it’s client for Mac OS X.
I was happy to find an email in my inbox this morning with details about the upcoming pre-release. The client run natively on Mac intel platform for now under both Tiger and Leopard. A PPC version is apparently in the work.
The OS X client is the most advanced client to date for LiveStation. It is the 1st to sport the new “Carousel” look and feel for channel surfing.
The feature is reminiscent of Coverflow but with an nice 3D addition. Windows users don’t worry, the new look and feel will be brought to the platform very soon. I was told that all three clients will be kept on par with features. The mean Linux, Mac and Windows. Read more
Livestation beta client for OS X next week? iPhone a possibility?
August 9, 2008
Last100 is reporting that Livestation will release it’s OS X beta client to a small set of testers (I think I am one of them) as early as next week.
Livestation has been available in beta for Windows users since September 2007. Since then Mac OS X users have been able to run the Windows client via VMWARE or Parallels virtualization. The experience was less than perfect. It is therefore a welcomed announcement for those running on Mac.
Livestation Paras Shas is reporting that the OS X version will not just be on par with it’s Windows counterpart… but will in fact have more features. Read more
Joost beta client 1.1.8 just released
July 21, 2008
Joost just released version 1.1.8 of it Windows and OSX client. Again, there is apparently nothing visible at this point with the client.
Joost is said to be releasing a web based version of the client later this summer… so within the next couple of weeks… most likelly in time for back to school I guess.
Simply follow this link to download the latest Joost client.
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Joost figured out what to do
June 17, 2008
Silicon Alley Insider published an interview of Mike Volpi about the future of Joost.
Mike report that Joost player was a great execution of a 2006 vision that did not pan out as expected given the new 2008 playing field. Mr. Volpi also reported that Joost hope to provide a better package and presentation solution to content provider hoping they will limit distribution of the good content to Joost and a few others… instead of offering it all over the web as it appear to be the trend at the moment. I am not sure what you are hoping for here but let me tell you Mike… Hulu is king right now for content distribution and it will be hard to displace. Not executing quickly on the web player side it going to be hard to recover from.
But who knows, Hulu was marked by all as dead on delivery but prove everyone wrong. So there is still hope Joost might be able to pull the impossible.
Mike state that alternatively Joost is focussing on indie content… something Hulu is not currently offering. I am not personally interested in indie content but maybe others are.
When asked about running out of money Mike answered that Joost has plenty of money in the Bank. Enough to deliver the new web based solution and tweak it to satisfaction.
MyMediaPlayer, the Hulu player for your desktop
June 16, 2008
Paul Yanez is at it again… and this time he just built the best darn media player for Hulu. His creation is named “MyMediaPlayer”. OK, not the best name out there… actually the name is pretty lame, but let forget about that and let focus on all the rest.
MyMediaPlayer is an Adobe Air application. This mean that it will run just fine on OSX, Windows and even Linux… as long as you install the Adobe Air framework and then install Paul’s media player on your system.
The combination of MyMediaPlayer and Hulu web site is what one might expect Joost new web site and standalone player to be.
Warner Bros. has some love for Joost, TiVo, Veoh, More
June 12, 2008
NewTeeVee report that:
“The Warner Bros. Television Group will be syndicating its television series online with Dailymotion, Joost, Sling Media, TiVo and Veoh. These are the shows it’s bringing out of the archives and producing for TheWB.com and KidsWB.com, like Friends — see our recent beta review. The distribution channels won’t launch until mid-September, according to a release.
Warner Bros. had previously announced that Comcast Cable, Fancast.com, and AOL would distribute this content. It also already sends some content to Hulu and sends some (but not all) of its movies to VOD on the day they are released on DVD. The company has said it doesn’t think ad-supported streaming generates enough revenue to justify distributing movies.” Read more
Video site Heavy cuts 22 percent of its workforce
June 5, 2008
CNET News blog report that Heavy, an online video play that caters to the Maxim crowd, has laid off 25 employees or about 22 percent of the company’s workforce, a spokesman said Thursday.
Heavy said earlier in the week that it planned to spin off its online video ad network division. Rafat Ali at PaidContent.org, who broke the story about Heavy’s layoffs, wrote that CEO Simon Assaad told him the layoffs were “a result of this spinoff, where the company realized some of the projects they were working on were not needed.”
I read that as Heavy not being able to sell enough ads to keep these people around.
The layoffs come as YouTube and the major TV networks appear to be sewing up the Internet video market. It’s going to get tougher for smaller video sites to attract ad dollars when they have to compete against the likes of CBS and Hulu, the video portal created by NBC Universal and News Corp.
A spokesman for Heavy declined to say what led to the downsizing. In a statement issued by the company, Heavy said the move was made to make it “more efficient and profitable.”
CBS do the Yahoo!
June 4, 2008
Image via Wikipedia
CBS expanded its relationship with Yahoo to include full episodes of primetime entertainment programming.
The network joined NBC, Fox and more than one-dozen cable networks that have made their programming available to Yahoo TV.
Yahoo will stream CBS’ ad-supported programming — essentially joining CBS Interactive’s CBS Audience Network — to its users, which already have access to 60 Minutes content and local news and sports from 16 CBS-owned TV stations.
The deal is a huge boon for CBS, which is adding millions of eyeballs. According to the network, with the new deal factored in, the CBS Audience Network now reaches 92% of the U.S.-based Web audience.
Anthony Soohoo, senior vice president and general manager of CBS Interactive, said the decision to work with Yahoo came from the reach the company has online. Read more
CBS and Yahoo! deal to be announced
June 3, 2008
TechCrunch got confirmation that CBS is going to announce an important partnership with Yahoo tomorrow morning.
While they don’t yet know exactly what it will entail, they are confident that Yahoo will be joining the CBS Audience Network, which distributes CBS content to destinations such as YouTube, AOL, MSN, Joost, Veoh, Fancast, Bebo, and TVGuide. See a longer list of partners here.
The CBS Audience Network launched in August 2007 and streams 70,000+ videos to over 300 partners. More than 190 million streams have been delivered since launch, the most popular of which are highlighted on the network’s own destination site. Read more
