Web: BillCammack.com
Business: Bill C. Quality Control
Facebook: Bill Cammack
Twitter: @BillCammack
eMail: BillCammack
Phone: +1.347.767.5922
Why Are You Doing A Live Show?
Thanks *ENTIRELY* to becoming aware of Jonny Goldstein and his show Reinventing Television in October, 2006, I’ve been doing live shows for almost two years now.
At this point, doing live shows has become a fad. Justin.TV, LiveVideo, Yahoo Live, Mogulus, Operator11, BlogTV, Ustream, Stickam, is YouTube doing live video now? There are tons of people doing live shows now, but to what effect? For what purpose?
I streamed several sessions live from PodCampNYC 2.
I do live shows from my “Live” page:
I still follow and participate in Jonny’s shows on BlogTV:
Rana Part 1
IME, There are only two reasons to do a show live. 1) You’re broadcasting time-sensitive information, or 2) You want your audience to be able to interact live with the hosts & guests.
Time-Sensitive Programming
Time-sensitive information would be the new Apple announcements as they’re occurring or maybe a sporting event like a football game or an MMA event. Basically, it’s a replacement for people not being able to travel to that location and view it themselves, in person. This is why I was streaming sessions from PodCampNYC. There were people in other towns that I was in communication with that were interested in seeing what was going on in NYC *while* it was going on.
In this case, there was communication with me, but not with the people doing the panels. The idea was to give the experience of “being there”. Then again, *I* was the one doing the show, not the panelists, so there actually WAS direct interaction with the host.
Most of the services I mentioned will save your video for you as an archive. This means that if your information isn’t time-sensitive, more people will watch the archive asynchronously than will tune in at that particular day and time to watch your show live. The only incentive they have to tune in live is reason #2.
Audience Participation
The only reason to bother tuning in to an internet show at a particular time instead of watching it whenever you get around to it is that you’re going to have a different experience during the live show than you have watching the archive.
George Kelly did a live show on Yahoo a few months back that I thought was really enjoyable and well-done. George plays guitar, and instead of having people tune in to watch him play whatever he had already decided, he was taking requests from the chat room. Automatically, there was value added, because the show was being created on the fly. Meanwhile, the text-chatters were socializing amongst themselves. George was in and out of attention to the chat room and “a fine time was had by all”. :D
Jonny Goldstein’s shows are fun because he does them consistently and has built up a “studio audience” that’s gotten to know each other via his show and maintained our relationships via other formats of social media. Jonny’s very attentive to the chat room, and he’s more of a facilitator of conversation than someone that just sits there talking to a guest as if there’s no live audience.
The reason I was thinking about this is that as stingy as companies are in trying to leverage pre-recorded video and UGC (User-Generated Content), I can’t see *WHY* they would turn around and waste their money making LIVE shows that are the exact same experience as the saved archive. Where’s the ROI? Are there really so many extra people tuning in to the live show that it justifies the expenditure? Isn’t it just preaching to the choir? For that, assemble the same hosts & guests, turn a video camera on, turn it back off, edit & upload that video and you’ll have just as many people watching it while retaining ducats in your video budget to create some worthwhile programming.
Perhaps ask yourself “What difference does it make if my audience watches my show live versus if they watch it later today?” or “What difference does it make if my audience watches this show next Tuesday, or next month?” If the answer is *NONE*, then save your money and focus on pre-recorded content.
Twitter: BillCammack
Subscribe via RSS or Email
Social Media Category: billcammack.com/category/social-media
Related Posts
7 Responses to “Why Are You Doing A Live Show?”
Leave a Reply
Podcast Feeds
I am in absolute agreement with you here. I’ve had issues with Live Internet Broadcasting just for the sake of doing it for a long time now. Some are done for great reasons, most are not. Welcome to the internet:)
Here is a video of me rambling on the subject while at Gnomedex last year: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=utjVhsryuAo
Like I said, I ramble and I think I was a little buzzed from the free drinks. Viewer beware.
You’re absolutely right. Even if there isn’t direct audience participation, Live broadcasting is directly motivated by its audience because unless there is a substantial group of people watching as it airs, the whole idea of Live anything is invalidated. There needs to be expectation and anticipation from some sort of curious fan-base at a designated prime-time spot -this is also the challenge for obscure vloggers to even begin a live show.
@taxiplasm: Absolutely. There’s ZERO value to a show’s “live-ness” outside of audience participation or at least being able to deliver something for people to watch that they need to learn about AS IT’S HAPPENING.
Restaurant Reviews? No need to be live.
Interviews? No need to be live.
Film Critiques? No need to be live.
Anything that could be consumed at a later date or time without any loss of value to the viewer doesn’t need to be live.
And… If a company does bother to create a live show, the number of viewers that they GAIN, compared to the viewers that would have watched the archive anyway, are the only ROI they receive. It’s my guess that there are MANY, MANY more people that watch shows on the internet asynchronously than will tune in at a certain time to watch the same content live. Especially when they know there isn’t much chance of their comments in the chat room having ANY effect whatsoever on the outcome of the show.
Hi Bill,
Thanks for the shout out. You are a great Par-tay participator.
Yeah, for me I love getting the interaction going.
But sometimes, it’s just fun to go live. Msybe that’s not good enough, but here’s my example:
Like on Good Friday, I saw these people reenacting the crucifixion of Jesus and there was just something priceless about streaming it live on Qik, even though I don’t think anyone text chatted me live as I did it.
I think a final reason for going live may not be a very good one—-If you shoot it live, you don’t have to edit! That can get old for your audience, but for the creator, it’s kind of a labor saver.
Hey Jonny. :)
Clearly, you’re right. Sometimes, it’s just FUN to go live. I have a fun, live clip right above the video in this post with you and Rana in it.
However….
How much money did you spend streaming those people live on Qik? …… That’s right… NONE! Not a DIME! You did it for FREE.
What I’m talking about is companies that actually spend money to stream live video instead of just doing pre-recorded videos. The News isn’t live. How come we have to wait until 12 pm or 6 pm or 11 pm for the news? :) Why spend money to stream something live, when it’s unnecessary? Tape it. Edit it. Release it when it’s done.
I’d love to see statistics showing the difference between the viewers that watch the archive and the viewers that watch it live, but DON’T watch the archive. That’s the only location where there’s a benefit.
On top of that, if you were streaming in Qik, that means you might have had your chat open, and people could text questions to you and affect your coverage of the reenactment. That’s value added right there.
Not having to edit is a fine thing, I’m sure… as long as one’s content doesn’t bore people to death.
[...] wants to get into the act”. I already asked the question “Why are you doing a live show?” back in June, 2008, when there seemed to be an epidemic of people creating garbage live channels [...]
[...] run your mouth. Don’t try to do shows you don’t know how to edit. Don’t try to do live shows unless it’s time-sensitive information and you’re sure that people actually care about [...]