Yesterday, there was an horrible earthquake in Haiti that measured 7.0 on the Richter scale‎. We won’t know until the sun comes up how horrible it was, because electricity AND telephone service was knocked out.

My long time friend and college homeboy, Pascal Antoine is Haitian. He founded and has been maintaining a website called HaitiXchange.com for a lot of years now.

I normally don’t watch the news at all, but I’ve been fascinated by the recent trend of channels showing 3% news and 97% punditry (people giving their OPINIONS about what the news means instead of showing us a bunch more news stories). So I turn on the television around 8pm and flip to CNN, where the slot says “Campbell Brown”, so I’m like “*yawn* Here we go!”, and she has a different look on her face and the marquis below her reads something like “Hospital Collapses In Haiti”.

The fact that I randomly flipped to a channel and they were DELIVERING news instead of GIVING THEIR OPINIONS about the news told me this was something serious.. On top of the fact that there are only three news stories that any of the channels are talking about at any given time. ‘Matter of fact, they just brought back the White House party crashers! :/

So anyway, I was like “I need to make sure my homeboy Pascal heard about this! :O”. So I punch up his number on the cell, and he’s like “Hello?”. I’m like “Yo. It’s Bill”. He goes “My friend Bill just called me…” and I’m like WTF is he talking about??? :D

So I’m like “Listen man. I’m watching CNN and they said a hospital collapsed in Haiti..” and then I’m listening to what he’s saying and I realize he’s got to be broadcasting on the air, live. hahaha I thought I was offering him a SCOOP and here he was already broadcasting the latest information to his HaitiXchange viewers! :D

Realizing what time it was, I hustled off the phone with him and pulled up his site on my computer where he was using Livestream (formerly Mogulus) to embed live video & audio on his homepage like I do on http://billcammack.com/live/. I was like “SWEET!!!”….. until the embed informed me that he had already reached the maximum number of viewers on his stream…..

When I saw this, I first thought it was some kind of Fail Whale, like Twitter loves to do, so I refreshed the page and it gave me the exact same message. Now, I was like WHAT. THE. ****?!?!?!?!?!?! I couldn’t believe it. What the hell is a maximum amount of viewers to a ******* live stream? :/

I found the answer in the Livestream FAQ:

“My channel is limited to 50 viewers, why is this?”
When you create a new Livestream Free channel, it is by default unverified,which means that you can stream to a maximum of 50 concurrent viewers at a time, and that your channel is not listed in the Livestream Channel Guide. Verification is designed to give all of our best producers maximum exposure, and to ensure consistent quality and compliance, throughout the Livestream Network.
To apply for verification first, make sure your content complies with the Livestream Terms of Use
Next, log into the Livestream Account Center. In the channels tab you will see the Verification status of each of your Livestream Free channels. To Verify a channel, click on the link and fill out the Livestream Free Channel Verification Application.

So, at least this was Pascal’s fault and not an imposed limitation by Livestream (disclosure: I have friends that work for Livestream). I used to use the service lightly when it was called Mogulus, but I pretty much stick to Ustream because it’s simple, reliable, I can broadcast to it live from my g1 (google phone) at any time, and relevant to this topic, I’ve seen HUNDREDS of people able to simultaneously watch a stream.

Contact
@BillCammack
Facebook
Linkedin
MySpace
Tumblr
blip.tv

So anyway, I kept hitting ‘refresh’ until someone’s connection dropped and I got in. Pascal was sitting there on camera, laptop open, cell phone in hand, taking calls from people who had LITERALLY the latest information. A friend of his, Francois, I believe, was there in Pascal’s studio speaking to his sister in Haiti who suddenly reported that another aftershock was just starting. Another guy was calling from Peru, I believe, and he was in touch with ham radio operators who were broadcasting information from Haiti. I put in my two cents by typing hyperlinks into the meebo chat that was embedded under Pascal’s live video and letting people know via Twitter & Facebook that we were getting up-to-the-minute info over @ HaitiXchange.

I stayed tuned in because this was really fascinating. This was FOR the people, BY the people. No spin. No Executive Producers. Purely people that were concerned about the situation and trying to do whatever they could to get a handle on the situation. Telephone service was basically nonexistent. Some people were able to communicate because they were down @ the Red Cross where they were able to share an internet connection with potentially THOUSANDS of people looking for refuge or aid. The chat room was buzzing. People were calling in from all over the place with the exact same story that they weren’t able to contact their families in Haiti. Rumors went around that Hotel Montana had been destroyed and that a rapper associated with Wyclef Jean named “Jimmy O” had died in the earthquake. People were concerned about their friends from the HaitiXchange forums that currently live in Haiti and that they hadn’t heard from since the earthquake hit. Pascal’s pops called his cell phone to make sure he was ok and see whether Pascal was in Haiti or in the USA…

This was international community coming together, communicating, brainstorming & consoling each other when it really counts. Instead of people being absolutely alone wherever they were, they had a site where they could get information they didn’t have and share information they did have. To Me, that’s one of the best things about Social Media. Yeah, it’s all cute that people get to shill for their businesses and try to make some money *yawn* but way more importantly, you don’t have to sit around watching some television channel that has zero interest in a situation other than the fact that it’s “breaking news” and they know they’re going to get ratings by talking about it. You get to be there when the people that are being affected reach out to each other and come together for the common good.

The sun still isn’t up yet, so we’ll know more in a few hours about the extent of the devastation. Good Luck to everyone that has friends, family & loved ones in Haiti and especially in Port-au-Prince that they’re safe but just without the ability to communicate. I’m sure that cell phones were left inside houses when people fled, phones and computers have run out of batteries, electricity’s failed to modems & routers… Keep the faith that they may be minus some material possessions, but they’re hopefully alive and as well as they possibly could be in this extreme situation.

Good Luck to the people of Haiti…

~ Bill Cammack | @BillCammack

Related Posts

• Social Media Smoke & Mirrors
• Why Are You Doing A Live Show?
• 297 ReelSolid.TV s03 ep015 – Live Show Plus 4
• CNN Presents “Black In America: Silicon Valley”
• Email. Not Facebook. Not Twitter. Not Phone. Not IRL…

It’s 2009 now, and everybody and LITERALLY their mother has their own web show. *yawn*

It’s time to move forward. This year is all about Live Streaming. All of a sudden, everybody wants to do it, but they just don’t know how. They think that turning on a webcam and having any audio at all equates to a quality experience for their viewers. Nope. That’s not how it works.

Here’s a list of live streaming tips that will bring you from ZERO to HERO in no time flat:

2006

This is a screencap from November 2006 from Jonny Goldstein‘s live show, “Reinventing Television”. I’m not on screen, but I’m in the text chat.

2008

I streamed several sessions live from PodCampNYC 2.

I did live shows from my “Live” page:

2009

“Everybody 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 where you could watch them eat cereal, sleep, or leave the camera running while they walk to the general store and back.

So now that live streaming is a fad, it’s time to hand out some tips on how to do it properly…

Hire a host

It’s literally IMPOSSIBLE to party and host a live stream at the same time. Impossible. You’re either paying attention to the event or you’re paying attention to the quality of your broadcast. If you want to participate in the event, hire someone else to be the host of your stream. Do you see Dick Clark running around Times Square? No. He’s the HOST. His job is to HOST. It’s other people’s jobs to run around in the streets getting interviews.

Check your audio

Audio off? No good. Audio too “hot” (distorting)? No good. Audio on, but you can’t make out anything that anyone’s saying, because they’re too far away? No good.

Teach people how to use the mic

If you’re using a lavalier mic, which is supposed to be attached to a person’s body, TEACH people that you hand the mic to not to attempt to swallow it as if it were a hand-held mic. When lavalier audio levels are checked, the mic is relatively far away from the person’s mouth. Moving it closer will overdrive your signal and distort the audio. On top of that, people breathing directly onto a mic that’s not made for that causes the levels to jump up and down, erratically.

Use a monitor

If you’re using a webcam that’s attached to a laptop, make sure you MONITOR the output. If you rotate the laptop screen so that you can look at it while you’re standing up in front of it, you are ALSO pointing the webcam AT. THE. CEILING. Either mount your webcam on something other than your laptop screen or if it’s built in, like a MacBook Pro iSight, make sure you point the camera at the PEOPLE, and not AT. THE. CEILING.

Select a good location

I saw one stream last night where the camera was sitting on a desk, and there were people crowded in front of it. The viewer experience was as if we were seated at a party where everyone else was standing up with their backs to us. No good. Remember that your laptop is now a CAMERA and not just a computer.

Tell people where to stand

When people are ready to make speeches, MAKE. THEM. stand in front of the camera instead of off to the side, or completely out of view. This is where having a designated host comes in handy as well as using a monitor.

Plan your location ahead of time

In my PodCampNYC2 video I posted above, I had the perfect position for filming the presentations, except I didn’t realize that the old-ass school they decided to use didn’t have electrical outlets in the desks in all the rooms. I was running out of power on my camera that I was shooting with as well as my laptop that I was broadcasting with, so I had to go to where the only outlet was in the front of the room.

Make sure you plan your location of the camera and the direction(s) the camera’s facing for the benefit of your VIEWERS, not for the convenience of people that don’t want to properly host their own live streams.

Bring your own internet connection

I was the only one live streaming from PodCampNYC2, because I was the only one that brought my own EV-DO card. Lots of other people ADVERTISED that they were going to stream live, because they were counting on the venue a) HAVING wifi, and b) having GOOD ENOUGH wifi for them to live stream over with everyone else pulling on the same resources.

Don’t advertise what you can’t deliver. Bring your own connection and test it ahead of time if you can.

Make sure you have a text chat

Without a text chat, you’re as useless as television. Make sure you have a way for your viewers to ask you questions, such as “Why are we looking at the ceiling?” and “Who is that person, and do they have a website?” and “How much money did you raise for the charity from walk-ins?”.

Have a chat moderator

This is technically the same tip as “Have a host”, except the moderator’s job is to provide Quality Assurance for your live stream viewers. If someone’s acting up in the chat, they get kick/banned. If someone asks a question, it doesn’t just float by. There’s someone assigned to watch the board and act as a go-between between the host and the viewers. Jonny Goldstein adopted this style for “Jonny’s Par-Tay” by bringing on Scott Stead as his “Super Producer”.

Recognize who the STAR is

If you’re using a live streaming site that allows you to have a co-host, recognize who the star is. Once you figure out who the star is… Normally, the person whose NAME. IS. ON. THE. SITE…. Make sure THAT PERSON is in the big box and anyone else that feels they need to be on screen is in the SMALL box. Nobody’s tuning in to see “the sidekick show”. They’re tuning in to HEAR, and more importantly, *SEE* the person they came to hear and see. Ensure that they want to come back the next time you announce a stream by giving them the experience they expected when they show up the first time… and EVERY time.

Have a call-in number

As you can see in my clip above, I’m running not ONE, but TWO audio “dial-ins”. The left side is coming from skype and the right side is coming from iChat/AIM. I’m talking to four other people and they’re talking to me and to each other. We’ve taken it entirely outside of the realm of “broadcasting at” and now everyone’s participating.

Plan topics and guests

Make sure people know what we’re going to be discussing in the live stream, and, if possible, who the guests are going to be. Jonny did a great job with this, lining up guests ahead of time and then advertising during the week who was going to be on:

This way, you get people who are actually INTERESTED in the topic showing up, participating and contributing.

The customer’s always right

Bill Cammack & Phil Campbell

There’s no reason to live stream unless you’re providing VALUE to your viewers/participants. If you’re not focused on what the audience is going to get out of the stream, don’t bother. If you’re serious, take your show on the road, like Phil Campbell.

Phil streams live using his phone, which also allows him to receive text chat messages WHILE he’s recording. You want to know more about something or see something again? Type it to Phil and he’ll make it happen.

So, If you’re gonna do it, do it right…. Like A-Rod & Barry Bonds will tell you… Go BIG!…
or Go HOME!

~Bill Cammack

Twitter: BillCammack
Social Media Category: billcammack.com/category/social-media
Subscribe via RSS or Email
 

Related Posts

• Email. Not Facebook. Not Twitter. Not Phone. Not IRL…
• Haiti Earthquake + Social Media = HaitiXchange.com
• 297 ReelSolid.TV s03 ep015 – Live Show Plus 4
• CNN Presents “Black In America: Silicon Valley”
• Google Plus Circles – How To Use Them

Twitter changed the game as far as blogging. Instead of posting something, and MAYBE people would stop by your blog and MAYBE they’d read your articles and MAYBE they’d leave a comment, all of a sudden, what you had to say was being pushed to people who actually REQUESTED to hear what you had to say by following you and then either checking the site itself or installing an app or widget on their computers or phones.

Twitter > Bill

I noticed that the traffic on the Yahoo Videoblogging Group fell off DRASTICALLY as Twitter presented a far better and faster way for people to get immediate responses to questions than an email list.

I also noticed A LOT OF PEOPLE putting a lot of their ideas on Twitter instead of their own blogs. I didn’t really think much of that until I talked with Tyme White about it ten (10) months ago, back in March, 2008:

Tyme: “Yes, the conversations are moving away from blogs but the problem is the same problem that has always existed, one I warned about at least two years ago. How many times has a writer published an article, a larger site wrote about it, and the conversation took place every where but on the writer’s site? Same problem – the writer would have to keep up with those conversations. Now, the same root problem exists, but there are many more sites where the conversation can take place. The writer publishes the entry and now a discussion can happen on the originating blog, any blogs that write about it, any site that aggregates content (Reddit, Chawlk, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc.), Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, any of the social sites that are popping up, forums…the list is long.”

The question is: does it matter to the writer if the conversation takes place in other places? If the answer is no, the writer would have one strategy. If the answer is yes, it does matter and the preference is for the conversation to take place on their blog, well, that would take a different strategy, wouldn’t it?”

So, referencing that practically-one-year-old post by Tyme… Does it matter where *YOU* blog your material? I blog mine to BillCammack.com. I post references to my blog posts on Twitter and Tumblr.

On December 18th, 2008, Wayne Sutton blogged about the advice he received from Tyme months and months ago:

Wayne: Earlier this year I had a conversation with Tyme White about twitter and personal branding that had stuck in my head ever since I got off the phone with her. She brought up the fact that I had a lot of twitter followers but where or how would I stay connected with those followers if twitter goes down (fail whale) , twitter gets purchased by google & closed like Pownce or their business model just doesn’t work and everyone leaves the community.

* For the record, that conversation actually happened months before Pownce got shut down, but I understand what Wayne was trying to say as far as making his point. *

So Wayne has over 11,000 twitter followers. It would seem to make sense for him to post to twitter a lot…

Tyme: “The reason why the conversation goes on without the writer being involved (and this is going to hurt but it’s the truth) is because the commenter doesn’t really care about talking to the writer. The commenter cares about commenting on the article. Unless the writer has a direct connection with their audience, the hurdle of converting a reader to a commenter is tough enough. If the reader finds the article on another site, it is a tougher hurdle to get the reader to leave the site he or she is on (particularly if it is a favorite site), and convert that reader into a commenter on the original site the article was published on. To achieve that type of interaction a deeper connection than publishing articles and hoping someone reads them is required.”

On December 20th, 2008, Chris Brogan wrote “Of Streams and Stopping Points”:

Chris: “Twitter is a stream. Facebook is both a stream and a stopping point (but mostly a stream). Your blog is a stopping point pretending to be a stream.

It’s important to think about where you want information to live, and how you want it to impact the world. For everything you toss into a stream rolls past, and if I’m not at the stream when you throw your leaf onto the waters, I’ll miss the leaf entirely, or perhaps catch only the ripples.”

I think this is a really good way to think about this topic. Do you want to post your ideas to a stream or to a stopping point? Like I said earlier, I post my ideas to stopping points, but I publicize them in streams. The question is… Which style is more relevant to the information you have for the public? Should you use streams, stopping points, or a combination of the two?

I think the answer depends upon the type of information that you’re presenting to the world.

There are lots of people who write tech blogs who are entirely derivative. All they’re really doing is regurgitating what they read or heard somewhere else and MAYBE.. if we’re LUCKY… adding literally two cents worth of their own commentary to the original information. These people are more like reporters than bloggers. They’re like the television news, informing you about what happened or what MIGHT happen. I’ve done blog posts like this, like this 2007 post where I “reported” that there was a New Joost Version Available”.

There’s no information there other than the facts that you could have read anywhere else. On top of that, that post ceased to be relevant almost immediately. Nobody cares on December 29, 2008 that a new Joost version was available on April 03, 2007.

If this is the type of information that you have to offer the blogosphere, put it on Twitter. People will see it quickly, react to it, give you credit for it, and then it will blow away in the wind. Nobody cares that it blew away, because your information was only as useful as it was timely and relevant.

OTOH, some people post original ideas that happen to be evergreen. These would be posts that are just as relevant today as they were on April 03, 2007. You do NOT want “How To Break Up With Your Girl” or “Why professionals avoid web video” to blow away, because people always want to know these things.

This is why I post to my own blog and use twitter/tumblr/etc for announcement purposes. I post evergreen, consistently relevant and interesting material, so it needs to be available when someone new searches Google for something that I wrote two years ago.

You wouldn’t, for instance, want this TIMELESS CLASSIC to go unseen, because you only referred to it on Twitter! hahahaha :D :

Permalink: Wayne Sutton TV

* Yes. I know that the video above gives an error message. Go to Wayne’s site if you want to actually see it. That’s really smart, making a video not embeddable….. *

So where should your material “live”? Should it rest on the temporary stream of twitter or the stopping point of your own blog? Who’s going to care next year about what you posted this year? Who’s going to care tomorrow about what you posted yesterday? Who’s going to care an hour from now about what you posted just now?

If you think people are going to care, make sure people can find your material on Google by posting it on a stopping point instead of tossing it away, down the stream.

~Bill

Social Media Category: billcammack.com/category/social-media
Subscribe to SM!: feeds.feedburner.com/BillCammackSocialMedia
 

Related Posts

• 297 ReelSolid.TV s03 ep015 – Live Show Plus 4
• CNN Presents “Black In America: Silicon Valley”
• #NOBLOG Status (Plausible Deniability)
• Are You Still Relevant? [Part 1 of 2]
• Twitter Evolution (Here Come The Civilians)

Podcamp with BlackRobb & the Hip-Hop Association, originally uploaded by thehalfshow.com.

Bill Cammack, streaming live from PodCampNYC.

Related Posts

• Podcamp with BlackRobb & the Hip-Hop Association
• Marko & Bill
• Bill & Terri at the reBar Podcamp NYC
• Bill Cammack at the reBar Podcamp NYC
• Bill Cammack

Podcamp with BlackRobb & the Hip-Hop Association, originally uploaded by thehalfshow.com.

Thanks to Jason Thomas (TheHalfShow), for taking this shot while I was live streaming the Hip-Hop session from PodCampNYC! :D

Related Posts

• Live Streaming From PodCampNYC
• Bill & Jason
• Marko & Bill
• Bill & Terri at the reBar Podcamp NYC
• Bill Cammack at the reBar Podcamp NYC