Online video, online video publishing, streaming media, OVP, OTT, web television, video advertising, marketing, startups, gadgets, social media, videoconferencing, collaboration and related topics are discussed here. Thanks for stopping by the "Klessblog."
Actor, author, motivational speaker and Monty Python alum John Cleese has joined the video conversation as a member of the Seesmic community. He appeared a two weeks ago on October 8th and answered direct questions from Seesmic members offering candid responses.
Jamie Riddlle wrote on his blog, "So its not everyday you meet someone famous, but tonight we did. In what must be a 'social network' first, John Cleese came onto Seesmic and invited questions. This 'hook up' was made possible by Dean Whitbread, Loic Lemeur [Head Honcho at Seesmic] and the great man himself.
For a bit of fun, my daughter posted a question..." Re: John Cleese on Seesmic Tuesday 7th at NOON Pacific TimeCan you helpme with my homework...
And she got this response...
Re: Ella /: John Cleese on Seesmic Tuesday 7th at NOON Pacific Time
The popular video conversation community now extends to the mobile network with the release of a new Seesmic client for the Nokia N95. Both the Seesmic blog and founder Loic Le Meur announced the public application release this past Friday. It had been in development for some time and almost a month ago on his blog Loic asked, Do You Have A Symbian Smartphone Nokia n95 Or The Like?, in an effort to recruit some testers.
Now you can take Seesmic with you and as the Seesmic blog says,
"Seesmic users will be able to record and watch Seesmic videos directly from their cell phones. On top of that, this application stands as the first tool in which users can reply to their friend's videos and build a threaded conversation from their cell phone. Also, true to its social software nature, the Seesmic application allows users to post a Twitter message with a link to their new videos."
Here's the official video announcement and demo:
To install the client on your N95 just go to http://m.seesmic.com from your cell phone, and follow the easy download instructions. For more information go to the Frequently Asked Questions page.
I spent some time today testing the client on the Nokia N95 that I have on load from Nokia/WOM World. I wasn't able to playback any videos due to some player configuration or network issues that I haven't yet resolved. Here's the video thread from my test.
Nokia N95 test Thank you to Steph and the Nokia/WOM World team for sending me the loaner Nokia N95 so that I could test this new application. Look for more updates from me this next week from Streaming Media West. I'm packing my bags and heading off to San Jose in the morning.
Social media applications have changed the way we experience current events creating new distribution networks that circumvent the corporate owned media networks. The DNC 08 is a great example of how people are connecting, communicating, sharing, reporting and changing the world using real-time and instant video messaging. In 2004 blogging gained influence in the political process but now in 2008 it's completely different with Twitter, Qik,Flixwagon, Seesmic, ooVoo,UStream, Stickam and so many other live and on demand video services. These new communication tools are much more powerful and direct and enable us to broadcast our feeds across the globe instantaneously. Who knows what it will be like in 2012?Chris Albrecht posted The Ultimate Web Video Guide to the Democratic Convention on NewTeeVee and here are a few examples of the "New Media Press" that I saw today.
Seesmic has a created Public Conventions account giving people access to post their messages from and to the conventions. From the Seesmic blog, "... Dan Patterson and the crew from TalkRadioNews are rocking the DNC.Also continue to participate in the video conversation at LinkTV powered by Seesmic.Below is the latest update from Dan in a long thread that has been the center of conversation. Please check it out, but also be warned, there is some harsh language. Re: Convention Coverage PUBLIC Accounthttp://talkradionews.com
Eileen Smith from the Texas Monthly, who I met earlier this month for the My ooVoo Day With.. Political Edition, is using ooVoo for exclusive videos and round table discussions. She and Paul Burka will be "Crashing the Conventions" and recording daily reports from both Denver and Minneapolis at the two major party conventions. Videos are available at Texas Monthly: Multimedia.
The Uptake is a small using Qik and captured the Ralph Nader News Conference. This may be one of the only venues you'll actually be able to hear from this staunch 3rd party candidate. At the end of the clip there's a fun exchange between Ralph and Citizen Kate.
Citizen Kate featured again in another The Uptake Qik video covering the political events the one hug at a time.
The Huffington Post created a branded player using Kyte to post its Media Shows.
Trevor F Martinis a Think MTV Street Team Reporter using Flixwagonand caught the Tent State Music Festival today. On his blog he says, "Today at the Tent State Music Festival, Rage Against the Machine headlined a star studded line-up including the Flobots, Wayne Kramer from the MC5s, the Coup and State Radio. Check out interviews with Wayne Kramer, Andy ROK and Johnny 5 of the Flobots and Boots from the Coup athttp://think.mtv.com/profile/trevorFmartin"
I just got my invitation to join 12econds.tv prior to taking a few days off with the family in Aptos and Santa Cruz. 12seconds is a new video messaging service that's currently in private alpha and like Twitter (which limits your messages to 140 characters) 12seconds limits your video messages to 12 seconds each. TechCrunch calls it "the real video Twitter" and offered 500 invites. Cordiva also offered 500 invites courtesy of ReadWriteWeb and you can read more on their about page or on this Stage Two Consulting blog post.
It's also similar to Seesmic and Phreadz (the UK Seesmic competitor that launched with threaded conversations) in that you are using video to share your thoughts and status and follow friends within a social network. It just so happens that 12seconds is based in Santa Cruz where I'm currently enjoying a few days vacation with my family. Founded by David Beach and Sol Lipman as a side project they are a small company of nerds and funded by burritos. 12 seconds works with mobile phones too and the time limit is real as the 12 second timer counts you down for every message.
"12seconds is the best place online for video status updates. It's a super easy way to share what you're doing with your friends and family using short video clips. You can use your web cam or mobile phone. Show your friends where you are, share your thoughts, or tell them how you're doing. We are building a video status platform that will help you keep up to date with your friends 12 seconds at a time." - About 12seconds
It's the middle of the summer and the heat is on. The live mobile broadcasting solutions, Kyte, Qik and Flixwagon, got some press in the tech blogs with two stories the last two days.
Beet.TV Associate Producer Kelsey Blodget, posted a new story "Kyte Blows in a Different Direction Than Qik, Flixwagon" that includes an interview with Kyte CEO Daniel Graf, who says that Kyte is really not in competition with with Qik and Flixwagon and has broader focus.
" Kyte is focused on a different market, partnering with entertainment companies including the four major record labels (Universal, Sony, EMI and Warner), MTV Europe and KROQ. It also will support any type of video content, whether online, mobile, live or recorded, while Qik and Flixwagon are primarily concerned with the live cell phone streaming of individual users. Kyte also lets users embed branded, automatically updating players on their websites and allows fans watching a channel on different sites to chat." - Kelsey Blodget, Beet.TV
I've covered Kyte before on this blog and listed the related links below. In particular, there's another interview with Daniel Graf on how Kyte is different from Seesmic, Qik and Flixwagon.
In a related story on TechCrunch Jason Kincaid posted, "Mobile Livecasting Faces Off: Qik vs Kyte vs Flixwagon" that compares the quality of three main mobile streaming platforms. They recruited Sarah Austin of Pop17.com to be the on-camera test subject for the quality tests and recorded a similar clip using each solution. The tests were more subjective than technical and didn't seem to have a set benchmark. Ratings issued on the video, audio and the player and Kyte edged out Qik on video and audio quality only with Flixwagon coming in third. Check out Jason's review to see all the videos.
There were some great comments on the post which listed other live mobile broadcasting applications and some pointing out that the test didn't delve into the technical specifics like this one from Ben:
"Technical comment regarding the comparison, that I think is somewhat wrong(!!!): You could clearly see the video shot on the Flixwagon video shot is much closer to the subject than Qik and Kyte. The surrounding are mostly white and compress better hence video quality of the picture will be better in this framing with all services. Another point not mentioned, I do know that both Qik and Flixwagon have quality settings - and I believe Qik goes up to 640×480 - what were the setting in each broadcast? how “live” was the broadcast? ignoring this is simply rating the default selection of each provider…"
Another comment from N95 was:
"nice comparison, but too simple, i’m afraid. i’m missing a more real-live set of tests using 3G using an adequate “no-delay” / medium resolution setting, which is more likely to be the normal setting for live-streaming, when someone is out and about. also i’m missing the technical details for each test, like resolution, bandwith used, delay, framerate, etc."
Livecast (formerly known as ComView) was also considered but they couldn't get the video to embed so it wasn't included. It supports Windows Mobile 5/6 and Symbian S60 phones, incorporates GPS and does have syndication capabilities for blog, YouTube and Twitter. It sounds like it should be great but formmy experience it actually performed poorly most likely not be a contender.
Regarding players Jason concluded that:
"Preference in the embeddable players will largely come down to a matter of taste. Qik’s player has the best styling, but it lacks the embedded chat features that are found on Kyte (Qik has a chat button in the player, but it doesn’t seem to do anything). Again, FlixWagon falls short in this area - it’s overly simplistic player is neither stylish nor feature-rich."
There are a number of other services available but none of them have had the amount of exposure and user adoption this past year as Kyte, Qik and Flixwagon. I'm currently testing all of these live mobile broadcasting platforms using a trial Nokia N95 compliments of WOM World/Nokia and so far Qik is my favorite. I plan to spend more time with mobile Kyte, Qik and Flixwagon during the next few weeks and publish my finding here on this blog.
Related posts from this blog on Live Mobile Streaming:
Here's a recent example of how one Sessmic user, Sukhjit2008, sought help from the Seesmic community to solve a real time problem. She wanted to buy a webcam for her parents to get them up and running on Skype. They have a Mac Mini so she went to Best Buy to look for the iSight camera but it wasn't in stock. Frustrated by not getting the help she needed from the Best Buy staff she logged onto Seesmic from a computer at the store and recorded a video message to the community asking for advise. Sukjit titled the video thread, "Loosing it at Best Buy" and within minutes she started getting replies from her Seesmic friends offering advise to help her with her purchase. Kevin Spidel posted this same video on his blog asWhy Seesmic Will Change The Game
This is a great example of the wisdom of the crowd, it's problem solving though video messaging. Of course, a live video chat would be better but instant real-time is the next best thing. In this case, Sukhijt had a real problem and posted a call for help to the Seesmic community which quickly appeared from all over the world. By the end of the thread the problem is solved with her purchase of the Rocketfish™ - Webcam. We see Sukjit made it to her parents house (and after fixing her audio) she introduces them to her Seesmic friends. The last video in the thread was recorded by Bruce Prokopets who seemed quite amazed by it all and said, "this is social media at work at it's best."
The Seesmic community continues to grow as well with the recent news that, Movable Type Now Has Video Comments On Seesmic Too. The Seesmic blog said,"We now support Movable Type, WordPress, Disqus, Cocomment, Drupal (API support, plugin coming) and Dotclear (unofficial) to add video comments. The plugins are already installed in about 1500 sites and blogs."
There was a wave of Seesmic events this week that shook things up in the video conversation space starting with Seesmic's founder Loic Le Meur announcing the ability to play Seesmic videos in Twhirl, their Twitter and Friendfeed client based on Adobe Air. Release notes for version 0.8.2 are on the Thwirl blog. You can play videos and see the thread in this test version and as Loic says, "We are working hard on adding recording asap."
"Having downloaded it my initial thoughts: this liberates Seesmic. I’ve never been a huge fan of the until previously dark layout of the Seesmic website, but with Twhirl Seesmic becomes convenient and easily accessible"
Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins of Mashable noted that it was only a matter of time for Twhirl to incorporate Seesmic video and had this to say:
"Seesmic continues to be one of the least useful forms of shortform broadcast messaging in the concensus of the general public, but it isn’t for lack of distribution. In recent weeks, Seesmic has grown from being YouTube meets Twitter to a platform for video commenting on blogs, and now with its integration within Twhirl, it’s likely that it’s adoption will increase further."
The next Seesmic event, Seesmic Adds New Threaded Player Feature, seemed to shake things up the most creating a number of aftershocks and debate within the blogosphere. As you may be aware, Seesmic recently created a Wordpress plug-in that enables Wordpress blogs to incorporate video comments along with written comments. A partnership with Disqus, the comment startup that powers over 13,000 blogs, followed soon after making video comments a viral feature on many blogs. Adam Ostrow of Mashable broke the Disqus story and wrote and interesting post on the usefulness of video comments (Disqus Adding Video Comments; Will People Use Them?)
The way Seesmic video comments had worked until this week was that they were displayed sequentially like text-only comments with a date and time stamp. But that changed with their new threaded player with the comments now appearing as they do below as thumbnails along the bottom of the main video comment. Loic Le Meur explains how it works in the video below. Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch wrote his review, Seesmic Hijacks Comments With Threaded Replies saying,
"It is a pretty cool feature, but it creates a conflict with all the sites that have embedded Seesmic functionality, such as TechCrunch. We love it when people use Seesmic to comment on posts, and there is certainly something to say for threaded comments. Sometimes you want to respond to comment No. 15, but you are comment No. 74. But if these responses become swallowed within the Seesmic player itself, then it effectively gets taken out of the comment stream of that particular post. (Yes, the responses are still accessible, but people will really have to hunt for them)."
Duncan Riley on the other hand disagreed and posted this response to Erick Shonfeld's post.
Seesmic video comments also got another boost when cocomment CEO Matt Colebourne announced that they will be adding video comments on their web site and blog network.
This brings Seesmic's funding to $12 million US. Le Meur said this about Seesmic's business strategy,
"Monetizing Seesmic won't occur in the next 12 months, we are focusing on the community and the platform. I believe video adsense like advertising will be huge and TV advertising dollars will finally shift online, but it will take 3 to 5 years, this is why we need funding to be there when it grows."
This wraps up my report on the major Seesmic events from this past week. If you haven't tried Sessmic yet, now is the time to join the video conversation.
By now you may have heard that several famous Hollywood A-listers paid a visit to Seesmic, the popular "Twitter for Video" discussion site founded by web entrepreneur Loic Le Meur. The celebrities included movie directors Steven Speilberg, George Lucas and actors Harrison Ford, Shia Laboeuf, Karen Allen and Cate Blanchett who joined a discussion on the upcoming release of the new Indiana Jones movie.
Jemima Kiss from the Guardian was one of many who posted several questions to the movie directors and stars and got direct replies from Mr. Speilberg himself. In her post, Spielberg pops up on Seesmic, Kiss said, "It's a simple enough idea but incredibly exciting; I just posted a few direct questions to Spielberg and Karen Allen... and it's quite a buzz watching them reply directly to your own questions. Seesmic is quite intimate too - like most people, I just use my webcam and was still wearing my pyjamas when I recorded."
Kiss asked Speilberg about his plans for the small screen and he replied that he was working on a web project he can't talk about (which Kiss thought it might be a paranormal social network), a games company and a few TV projects.
Kiss said that Picture Production Company put the event together and added that, "Beneath the froth, though, there's a directness and energy about this that really works, though lord knows how much engineering (both technical and bureaucratic) must have gone into this. The best thing about it is that it bypasses the Hollywooid/Cannes schmaltz and gets straight into a conversation."
The web exploded this morning with bloggers reporting on the big news. A publicity event like this will the make popular video discussion site even more popular and mainstream for video conversations as word gets out. Look at Oprah, she's using Skype all the time.
Loic Le Meur has behind the scene details on his blog with photos of their set up and links to all the videos.
He explained that, "I wish we would have given some notice to our community but we did not know obviously until the last minute if it would happen or not and the production team had requested the videos being posted in private first, then unlocked, which would not have allowed us enough interactivity. Some videos were posted in real time, but it was a good surprise and not planned, so no way to tell people to show up. (more...) This experience illustrates how video on the net and Seesmic can be a fantastic way to get our community closer to celebrities and ask them questions directly. They would not have accepted live and the asynchroneous Seesmic format worked very well. They took many more questions from journalists that they would have in face to face as Seesmic passwords were distributed to journalists around the world." In his VentureBeat post, How to mainstream a web app in a hurry: Get Spielberg, Lucas and Ford aboard, MG Sigler said, "Is it a publicity stunt? Sure. But really how many things aren’t in this day and age? Yes, it might have been more interesting to see Spielberg or Ford in their pajamas answering questions rather than it being a fairly obviously more professional set up (camera on tripod, chair in front of backdrop, off-camera interviewers, etc), but we’ll take what we can get. Remember, Hollywood celebrities also have an image to maintain." Scoble called it a huge win for Seesmic and pointed to heavy discussion threads FriendFeed. He also added that you can view the individual pages here:
On a sour note though, the publicity on this was kept secret and the surge of viewers to Seesmic actually created outages at sites like TechCrunch who recently turned on video comments which are powered by Seesmic. Michael Arrington, who is also a Seesmic investor, ripped into Le Meur for not giving investors a "heads up" and has since disabled the video comments plug in as it caused outages on his site by the server reboots.
There were a share of exchanges on Twitter on this subject and Le Meur posted a statement and an apology video that he'll do a better job in the future of communicating with investors, partners and users.
Regardless of the controversy it created through the system outages, this is another example of the power that video conversation can create, and it's by far the most direct form of communication.
A round up from Techmeme as of 4:20 PM PDT:
Convergence, acquisitions and integration are the synergy that feeds our social networks, entertainment outlets and information feeds. It was big news for Seesmic yesterday as Loic Le Meur announced the acquisition Twhirl, a popular Adode AirTwitter client by German developer Marco Kaiser that lets users connect with text messaging social services like Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku outside of a browser interface.
Loic Le Meur says, "Staying in touch with your friends using microblogging is much easier using a client than through your browser" and offers 20 reasons why this integration will benefit the Seesmic community on his blog and in the video below.
There has been plenty of coverage on the acquisition TechMeme and on Le Meur's blog. and ReadwriteWeb's Marshall Kirkpatrick sums up the benefits an in depth review, Seesmic + Twhirl is a Vision of the Web's Future, saying that, "Video + Microblogging = Rich User Experience" and that, "How long until even more services are rolled into this new dynamo? Seesmic already integrates outbound publishing with YouTube, Qik and Twitter. How long until the company rolls out lifestreaming capabilities ala FriendFeed, displaying recent user and aggregate-friend activity on any number of other services - then storming the Facebook Newsfeed as a packaged solution to the 3rd party RSS feed dilemma there? Probably not very long... Lifestreaming apps are making this a service, FriendFeed is the leader today, but somehow this functionality is a logical thing to come to Seesmic/Twhirl next."
Doug Caverly from WebProNews says, "There are obviously some potential sticking points - Seesmic is still in alpha, and Twitter itself is notorious for suffering untimely outages. Yet on the whole, the deal looks like it could give quite a boost to microblogging."
Rich media user experiences combined with real-time social interaction drives integration. Whether it's an acquisition or partnership the result is a new and improved tool set for us to communicate.
Live streaming from mobile phones is another red hot area of integration with Qik and Flixwagon announcing their ability to directly upload videos to YouTube a few weeks back.
Robert Scoble reported the Qik news on March 15th and generated some good discussion on quality settings for Qik videos. On the Qik blogBhaskar Roy said, "Keeping with the mantra of being able to stream video from your cell phone to the world - with this integration, Qikkers can now stream to YouTube, Mogulus, Seesmic, Mobuzz, and all your blogs and websites - automatically just by pressing "Stream" on your cell phone!"
According to a Flixwagon press release, they announced their users will have a new tool,"the FliXee Widget which will stream live mobile-to-web broadcasts directly to Flixwagon users Websites, Blogs, and Social Networking sites. Additionally, Flixwagon users will now have the capability to deliver their mobile-to-web broadcasts directly to YouTube through their Flixwagon account."
Flixwagon media darling and Pop17 producer Sarah Meyers talked with Andy Plesser in this Beet.TV interview about the evolution of live streaming and the new Qik and Flixwagon mobile streaming APIs for YouTube.
Loic Le Meur and his team produced a new video introduction to Seesmic of which he says, "Okay I know, an intro video really sounds like something boring and marketing-ish but we tried to make this one entertaining, especially check out vinvin going all over the screen."
I think they did a great job showing off the features in a fun and informative way. So what are you waiting for? Join the video conversation!
Joyce Kim and Liz Gannes interviewed web entrepreneur and video blogger Loic Le Meur on the latest Giga Om show, Episode 34 - Forget Twitter: Seesmic.com creates online video conversations. The episode description says, "Unlike most online video sites that rely on a video upload model, Seesmic provides an online built-in user interface that enables participates to record their personal video note directly to Seesmic's servers. This could be the future of conversation over the web."
Sessmic has been described as the Twitter of video however Le Meur calls Seesmic a video conversation software and incorporated that into the tag line "Join the Video Conversation." Jose Castillo thinks Seesmic is another example of why video is changing the world and he recently expanded a short post on his blog into a full article on Streamingmedia.com. Castillo described how he tapped into a community conversation started by a deaf Seesmic user Louis Ricciardi writing that, "I was reminded why video is so important and why it is changing the world … it’s all about people communicating."
Liz Gaines said on NewTeeVee, "Seesmic is a video startup I’ve shied away from writing about too often, because I’m not sure I really get it. But I figure if so many smart people think there’s something good going on here, I should keep an eye on what the company is doing."
Loic responded on his blog, "Ah and Liz says she does not really get Seesmic, even after having me on the show, I must really not be clear enough, let me know if I can explain more."
Allan Stern from CenterNetworks wrote a post about Seemic last month titled, Taking a Look at Seesmic and Why It Won't Work Despite Those Behind It. He compared some of the many video tools and distribution services like YouTube, Flixwagon/Qik, Ustream, SeeToo/ooVoo and concluded that, "It's taken me a while to figure out what Seesmic is but I've come to the realization that it's a video message board... If Loic can figure out how to make the "video conversation" real-time and step away from being a message board, then it has a much better chance of succeeding. But there are plenty of services that do that already." Jose Castillo put things in perspective regarding Seesmic by saying, "We all are guilty of focusing too much on the tools we use every day. Blinded by the coolness of our latest application or service, we sometimes forget that connecting human beings is at the core of online media."
Graf defined Kyte as an enabling technology and other platforms as destinations. He explained that all four record labels are using Kyte and the major difference is that Kyte’s offerings are broader than it’s competitor with on demand video, slide shows, polls, Facebook apps and everything is interactive as “a full media platform.”
50 Cent was a early Kyte adopter and premiered his new video on Facebook (powered by Kyte) and got 500,000 views in two days. “It’s massive” said Graf who explained that with the Kyte player branding you can create a “micro website” that’s virally distributed on many platforms.
While other platforms focus on streaming “Kyte wants to be a much fuller experience than other sites doing livestreaming… its sights are set higher than that” said Joseph Weisenthal from MoconetNews in his March 10 th interview with Graf titled, @ SxSW: Interview: Daniel Graff; Kyte Vs. The World; More Than Just Video Streaming. Graf asserted “We do slideshows like Slide, but they don’t do mobile video… we do mobile video streaming like Qik, we do mobile uploads like Shozu. We do mobile chatting like Meebo… What the brands want… they don’t want five widgets they want one super-widget..”
Graf created quite a buzz for Kyte at SXSW with some of the following coverage:
Scoble interviewed Graf at SXSW as well and posted these five separate Qik videos of which he said, “Unfortunately the connection kept going down, so we split that video up into five pieces. Here they are: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V.”
Kyle Monson from AppScout also interviewed Graf in his Mar 12th post,SXSW: Interview with Kyte.tv's Daniel Graf where Graf offered an important tip to video podcasters, “"It's all about the content quality. If you have compelling content, we'll probably give you the easiest way to product, and the easiest way to distribute. But if your content is not compelling, it's not going to work. And it's not easy to do compelling content… I think the sweet spot is between three and four minutes. Don't do a 20-minute show, no one's going to watch that.”
In this excerpt, he writes, "Live TV is just starting to take off, and below I present a select list of competitors, and why I love ‘em, hate ‘em and sometimes both. I prefer Kyte and Mogulus for being able to create and broadcast an innovative show, while UStream.TV has aligned with big-name personalities like The Plain White T’s that are fun to take a look at. In the Mobile sphere, Qik seems to be the dominant force, allowing users to stream mobile to internet with only a 5-second delay, but FlixWagon will be hot on its tails when it releases a public alpha in January."
With all the collaborative and live video streaming applications - like Youtube, Skype, Twitter, Justin.tv, Kyte.tv, Facebook, MySpace - is what we’re doing an ongoing Lifecast?
Lifecasting is defined in Wikipedia as "a continual broadcast of events in a person's life through digital media.... through the medium of the Internet and can involve wearable technology. Justin Kan popularized lifecasting after strapped a web cam to his head and began his life broadcast 24/7. He founded Justin.tv and the web site streams multiple live video channels of people mostly hanging out at work or at home chatting online with viewers, or driving in their cars or performing live music. One channel had a live feed from a club in San Francisco that regularly broadcasts a Salsa dance class. You can get your own mobile Lifecasting kit like Justin at Dynamisim. The technology does lend itself to adult themes based on it's voyeuristic quality, but everything I saw was G-rated, mainly people chatting with their viewers.
While I'm not ready to set up a live video streaming channel, I did try sign up an account on Kyte.tv. Here's a video example I produced to show how it works.
It's easy to set up a Kyte.tv account and start broadcasting. The online content creation tools are intuitive and easy to use. I didn't spend too much time exploring the channels, but I did find Scobleizer's channel and you can't miss 50 cent's channel on the main page.
We'll continue to see a lot of development in this area of personalized channels (live and on-demand), interactive video tagging, live chat and mobile streaming applications with more and more in the coming year. One recent example is San Francisco-based start-up Seesmic, a community driven video social software that's being called the video based Twitter. It's gone through beta and is now it's in its invitation only alpha phase. Here is what TechCrunch says about it.
