Another One Bites the Dust... Yahoo Live! To Stop Broadcasting on Dec. 3rd

Many blogs have already reported the news the Yahoo Live! is discontinuing its live streaming platform next month. It's 9 month experiment comes to a close on December 3rd. It was started Yahoo's Advanced Project team Yahoo! Brickhouse and was intended “a platform for live video” to allow anyone with a webcam to set up their own channel and stream live video. It joined a crowded field of companies like Stickam, Justin.tv, Ustream, Qik, Mogulus and Flixwagon who were already in the same space.

When it launched in February of this year it had initial scaling problems which were resolved soon after and it became popular among lifecasters and live webcasters.

According to the Yahoo Live blog Yahoo software engineer Keith Thornill, "Our mission here on the Brickhouse team is to quickly develop product ideas that can add value to Yahoo! as a whole. To do this effectively we constantly evaluate our early-stage products and sometimes have to make the hard decision to move on, in order to continue exploring new territory and developing new products. So it is with great sadness that I share the news that Yahoo! Live, a Brickhouse project in social broadcasting will be going off the air on 3 December 2008."

Chris Albretch of NewTeevee offered these thoughts, "Is this a harbinger of things to come in the live-streaming space? Probably not. The whole project was an experiment for Yahoo, which, let’s face it has much bigger issues to deal with right now. While the sector as a whole certainly has struggled to find a viable business model, the startups populating it have managed to hang on (for now) and move beyond videos of people eating breakfast."

Although Yahoo Live! was an ambitious effort it didn't seem to have a clear business plan and it's not clear if Yahoo's current financial situation was a reason to axe the service. I actually tuned in this evening at 10:00 PM PDT and there were only 831 people watching 37 channels.

However, Ben Homer of Online Video Watch offers this perspective, "On a day where the Premier League lashed out at Justin.tv for their lax policies on taking down illegal content, it’s worth asking if Yahoo!, a company with real revenue and existing video delivery scale can’t afford to pay for bandwith, how much longer can some of the other players in live streaming space survive. How will they make money?

The answer is subscription sales, or ad sales, or both, but the former requires a rabid audience, the latter requires more targeted advertising, and both require scale and low content delivery costs to be successful."

The Yahoo blog concluded, "We hope you can join us in our town hall this Wednesday to toast Yahoo! Live.

For more out of Brickhouse, check out the recently launched fire eagle, and keep an eye on next* to stay posted on what we’re doing next."

YouTube Launches Auto Translate for Videos with Captions to Help Bridge Language Barriers

The YouTube Blog announced a new innovation in language translation which helps further break down the barriers of communication in our ever widening online networks. It builds on Google's AJAX Language API and extends that capability into any YouTube video with a caption track.

Mark Robertson of ReelSEO wrote today, "Adding captions and subtitles to your videos not only make your video accessible to those with hearing impairments, but adding them in multiple languages can help to drive additional traffic from non-English speakers and international audiences. Last month, we wrote a beta feature in Dailymotion that allows users to add subtitles, with support for multiple languages, to web videos. Youtube has gone one step further." - from Auto-Translate Your Youtube Video Captions and Subtitles Automatically

The YouTube blog announced yesterday, "In August, we added captions and subtitles to YouTube videos to help uploaders reach a wider audience. While we've been working to offer captions in as many different languages as possible, there are often only a few translated versions available. To solve this problem, we added a new "auto translate" feature. Google Translate adds real-time machine translation to any caption tracks you upload. Now you can enjoy this video spoken in Italian, even if you don't understand Italian.... To get a translation for your preferred language, move the mouse over the bottom-right arrow, and then over the small triangle next to the CC (or subtitle) icon, to see the captions menu. Click on the "Translate..." button and then you will be given a choice of many different languages." - from Auto Translate Now Available For Videos With Captions | The YouTube Blog


YouTube Captions and Subtitles
Description: Add multiple captions or subtitle tracks to your videos!About captions and subtitles feature http://www.youtube.com/t/captions_about
English script can be found here. http://sites.google.com/site/youtubecaptoinsandsubtitles/

With so many different languages, dialects, pronunciations and meanings there's always room for error with the real message getting lost in translation and the YouTube blog admits , "While machine translation is not perfect, we hope this will help creators to offer you a better understanding of their videos."

Although software-based translation can have its inherent flaws it's definitely a step in the right direction to help us reach across cultural and language differences to reach a better understanding.

For information about how to use captions, visit this YouTube page.

Super Bowl Viral Video Stars Reprise Their Roles for Election '08 and Ron Howard's Call to Action

The General Election is now just two days away and that means we only have to endure the barrage of TV commercials a little while longer. It's been a contentious political season and probably the most important election in generations. In many ways the more things change the more they stay the same and characters we've known from the past return to reprise their roles to help get out the vote.

Craig Rubens of NewTeeVee noted this week, "we’ve come full circle with two more ads from Super Bowls past revamped for online political purposes. Office Linebacker “Terrible” Terry Tate has returned to put the hurt on fools who don’t vote, while the “Wassup” guys have suffered every great malady our nation has gone through over the last eight years."

“Get Out The Vote”
Description: Terry Tate reminds you to go out and vote!
Go to http://maps.google.com/vote to find your polling place.
Go to http://www.ReturnOfTerryTate.com for more videos.


"Reading is Fundamental"
Description: Sarah Palin gets a surprising new subscription.
Go to http://maps.google.com/vote to find your polling place.
Go to http://www.ReturnOfTerryTate.com to see more videos...
Terry Tate: "How's that for Drill Baby Drill! You just subscribed to Terry's Journal of Pain!! And the first issue is free, baby! Whoo!! ... Hey Katie!"


"Waasup 2008"
Description: Its been eight long years since the boys said wassup to each other. Even with the effects of a down economy and imminent change in the White House, the boys are still able to come together and stay true to what really matters.

Many Hollywood A-listers are outspoken voices for political change as you can see from Ron Howard's Call to Action.

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

Description: Ron Howard wants to talk about the election. So does Andy Griffith and Henry Winkler.
Credits: Starring Ron Howard, Andy Griffith, Henry Winkler. Written By Ron Howard, Adam McKay. Directed by Jake Szymanski

12seconds.tv Integrates with Qik and Flixwagon

In another mashup of microblogging and live streaming platforms Qik announced yesterday, Qik is the first live mobile video service to integrate with 12seconds!

"We're very happy today to announce that Qik is the first live mobile streaming service to integrate with popular micro-video site 12seconds (aka "video Twitter")."

Now Qikkers can stream their Qik videos directly to their 12second.tv accounts and the only catch is that the videos can only be 12 seconds each. I attempted it a few times and included one of the results with the original Qik video which is actually 19 seconds and the 12seconds.tv video. The video only took about two minutes to appear on 12seconds once it had started streaming live on Qik.com. Qik had already integrated with Twitter, Mogulus, YouTube , Pownce, Mobuzz.tv , Blogger, Seesmic and Tumblr.


Qik video


Qik Video on 12seconds.tv

Further integration of microblogging and lifestreaming networks like this is innovative. But I'm still debating on whether or not I'll keep it enabled in my Qik account. I know it's syndication but I'm mindful of the noise it can generate through the replication of the countless videos across the networks.

And in related live mobile broadcasting news...



Flixwagon and 12seconds have also announced a similar integration just one day before Qik on October 30th. While I didn't see an option to link my Flixwagon and 12seconds accounts in either service both blog posts stated that it would available this weekend in time for testing before the General Elections on Tuesday.

The 12second blog says, "Flixwagon is the amazing service that let’s you stream live video to the web from your mobile phone. It’s completely amazing technology and we’re excited to be working with Flixwagon. You can link your 12seconds account to your Flixwagon account and then the first twelve seconds of every Flixwagon session will go automatically to 12seconds!" - from Flixwagon integration, Current and Halloween! « the 12seconds.tv blog

Flixwagon blog says, "During the US Presidential Elections this Tuesday Nov 4, Flixwagon users will have the opportunity to share their election thoughts and experiences on Current TV by linking their Flixwagon account with a 12Seconds.tv account, and making 12-second-long videos. The Current TV network is known for its user participation model, variety of short-form content, and its Inconveniencing Truther Chairman Al Gore (the network is available in over 51 Million households and online, so that’s a lot of people who might see your Flixwagon videos…)." - Share Your Election Day Thoughts and Experiences on Current TV with Flixwagon and 12Seconds.com - The Flixwagon Blog

A few related blog posts:

• 12seconds.tv Partners with Qik and Flixwagon - ReadWriteWeb
• VatorNews - 12seconds.tv and mobile lifestreaming?

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Beet.TV Convenes Online Video Summit This Week at 30 Rock in New York City

This past week on Tuesday October 28th, Beet.TV held an Online Video Summit roundtable discussion that was streamed live using Mogulus and hosted by Andy Plesser with co-moderators Dan Farber, Editor-in-Chief of CNET News.com and Erick Schonfeld, co-editor of TechCrunch. They were joined by an impressive panel of online video and technology leaders at the msnbc.com Digital Cafe at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. For a list of participants, please see their earlier post and check out Beet.TV to see their exclusive interviews from the event.

The Beet.TV Online Video Roundtable: Live Streaming, Blogging from 30 Rock, Right Here
Here's part 1 and 2 of the recorded session.

See Kelsey Blodget's live blogging from the event here.