I came across this video on JohnChow.com recently (I have embedded the video below), and thought that I would write a post about the business model surrounding the This Week In Tech podcast, but then I looked a little further into the video hosting platform that the video uses, and I got really excited. As I dug deeper into Livestream and the service that they are providing, I saw a future for online media that I really, really like.
While not necessary for all video online, there is a definite lacking of good live video content. For things like sports, or live events, having streaming video is important to a lot of viewers who won’t really care to watch after they know the outcome of the event. Livestream is an excellent service for hosting, and for mixing live video. Imagine being able to run your own cable tv channel without spending a quarter of a billion dollars! Your video can be made available on their website, or you can make it privately available only on your website where you could hide it behind a pay wall if you decided to do so. This means niche markets that were previously unservable do to their small size, can now be served profitably.
Within the video Leo Laporte talks about his experience in the traditional broadcast media world, working as a tv host for a number of different canceled shows, and channels. The point he makes that is the most important for all of this is the ability to target your audience so precisely with the tools available to us now. Previously you were paying $50CPM when only a small majority of that audience was who you really wanted to target, but now he charges a $70CPM and provides his advertisers with an absolutely laser targeted audience. Just imagine the number of different niche markets this could be applied to. I will admit that yes, creating a show that caters to tech enthusiasts is going to do very well online, but this could be repeated for several under served markets, just don’t expect to get $70CPM!
Twit.tv however does not use Livestream’s service, they use something called BitGravity, which from the looks of it provides a similar service, but does not give as much information on their website regarding how they work exactly. Livestream seems like it is geared towards a broader market with their free service, whereas BitGravity from what I can make of it, seems geared towards the higher end producers.
The next step necessary for online media is to start providing more high quality content. Of course silly YouTube videos are fun, and they get a lot of views, they don’t have the same power over users like high quality content about stuff their interested in does. If you are a badminton fan, like I am, you know that there is very little available for us. No cable channel, limited broadcast coverage (none if you live in the Americas), and not much online either. If someone were to produce half decent quality video content online for badminton fans, they would dominate the market. They would be able to aggregate all of the world’s badminton fans to their website, and not the people who just kinda like it, but the hardcore fans who will buy the stuff you try to sell them. Tools like Livestream has provided will make this so much easier for us content producers to start providing higher quality live and on-demand video.
There are of course some issues I’ve seen with Livestream. The most obvious is the quality of some of the streams. I was excited to see a tennis channel, but was immediately disappointed by both the streaming quality, and the production quality. These are issues that will be sorted out over time as bandwidth improves and as the producers learn how to create better quality productions, however something that really concerns me is the idea of relying so heavily in a start up company. If a company like Amazon, or Akamai was running this service, I wouldn’t be quite as hesitant to sign on, but with a new company like this the concern is that they won’t be around as long as you are, and then what are you going to do when you have built a business that relies on this service.
In spite of the aforementioned concerns, I would bet money on this service, and I probably will. The possibilities that are being presented to us with new services like this are very exciting. The clutter of new media is starting to take us in a direction that seems to be making some sense, and should make traditional media companies more and more nervous. Check out the video below, Leo Laporte is definitely something of a trailblazer in this new media world.