Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Ustream

Post #10
What is Ustream?
~ A website that is made up of a network of diverse channels providing a platform for lifecasting and live video streaming of events online.
~ Established in March 2007, the site has over 2,000,000 registered users who generate 1,500,000+ hours of live streamed content per month with over ten million unique hits per month.
~ It received $11.1 million in Series A funding for new product development from DCM and investors Labrador Ventures and Band of Angels.

How does it work?
·         Ustream allows users to broadcast from the Web site once logged in or from a mobile device using Ustream's mobile broadcasting application.
·          Users can watch streams live on the Web site and on the Ustream iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone 7 applications.
·         The Web site allows users to interact, such as vote in polls, rate, chat, and so on.
·         The iPhone and Android applications allows users to watch and chat.

Fees
-           Ustream's basic service is still free and supported by advertising revenue, Ustream started to offer Watershed, a pay-as-you-go version of their service.
-           Watershed customers pay per viewing hour, charging from $0.25 to $1 per viewer.
-           Watershed users don't have to display Ustream's advertisements and logos and can provide their own instead.

What do I think?
~ It’s open to anyone to watch, which means there is really no privacy.  This would be a concern; I’m sure, with parents if it were used for a live broadcast from a classroom.  Most parents do not want their children’s image on the open net.
~ It would be great to use to watch sites like a rocket launch or other equally intriguing phenomena.
~ You would continuously be checking the site to see what’s going on – kinda time consuming.
~ It has its usefulness and place, but I am leery to use it as a connection to another class, it would definitely be a resource only for me.

1 comment:

Richard Schwier said...

You're finding some of my favourites. Ustream is a good option for a lot of things. I take your cautions as a consumer of Ustream programming. Some of it is a little dodgy. But I think it really shines as a medium for producing your own programming and distributing it to the people you want. It is free and a powerful way to share things in the way you want, and that's the way I've used it for the most part.