jonnygoldstein.com

Kathryn V. Jones and I did a quick presentation on creating live web video programs at Podcamp Philly yesterday. This captures most of our session. Feel free to skip around. Here is some information about various services and examples we mentioned:

All of the examples below allow you to embed the live video in your own web page. All of them allow you to create archives of the live video. All of them have upper limits on numbers of simultaneous viewers. We aren’t sure what those limits are. They will vary between services, and probably various in a single given service from second to second. At this point these services probably not your best bet for a live stream that expects mass viewership. If you are expecting that kind of scenario, you should contract with a company which can guarantee capacity for you. For example, in 2004, the Democratic National Convention contracted with a company called Avacast to guarantee capacity.

Please take the information below with a grain of salt. Things change quickly in this space, so this may be out of date on some details.

Operator11.com—This service allows you to stream live video and to switch between different cameras and play prerecorded video clips. The ability to switch between cameras means that you could be sitting in Washington DC interviewing someone in Bangladesh. One drawback—They only allow shows to be forty minutes or so. This is what Jonny Goldstein is using for his show Jonny’s Par-tay.

Ustream.tv—Similar to Operator eleven except there is no time restriction on length of streaming sessions. Drawback: Can’t switch between multiple cameras.

Blog.tv—The big differentiator between it and the examples above: Blog.TV allows you to do a split screen. Drawback: Only records the screen of the person who initiated the webcast.

Mogulus—-Promises a great deal. Crashes my browser every time I try to create a session. It promises the ability to brand your video with overlayed graphics and text, and the ability to switch between cameras and canned clips. Unfortunately, still very buggy.

Flash Meeting—Less of a broadcast tool than a social video application. Participants take turns being on camera.

Meebo Rooms—An easy way to create a chatroom you can embed on your own webpage to go with embedded live video. This is an easy way to involve audience members so they can ask questions, make comments and so on.