Round-up of DIY live video streaming services

The lowly webcam has been enjoying something of a renaissance of late, aided by increased broadband penetration, improved streaming codecs, more kit being bundled with webcam functionality (e.g. mobile phones, laptops) and a mushrooming start-up economy, hungry for the next big web thing.

Justin Kan, founder and 'star' of Justin.tv, must also take a share of the blame/credit. Launched in March of this year, the 24/7 'lifecast' streams continuous video from a mobile camera attached to Justin's cap and has attracted a significant amount of media attention. Whilst the concept isn't new (anyone remember JenniCam?) the services which have sprung up enabling you to easily do it yourself are. Below is a round-up of a few of the main players.

Stickam
http://www.stickam.com
Launched: February 2006



First out of the blocks (and actually predating Justin.tv by over a year) was Stickam, which bills itself as 'The Live Community' and offers a suite of tools including live video streaming via an embeddable player. Stickam recently hit the headlines over allegations that its parent company, Advanced Video Communications, also runs a substantial online porn operation, which hasn't been viewed by everyone as a particularly good fit with Stickam's predominantly teen user base. The teen user base also helps explain the site's scrappy, MySpace aesthetic and general incomprehensibility to an old geezer like me. Definitely one for the kids.

Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: N
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: N

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

Ustream.tv
http://ustream.tv
Launched: March 2007



Ustream.tv was the first of the new generation lifecast sites to appear post-Justin.tv, reportedly bringing its launch date forward to capitalise on the surrounding publicity. The interface is pretty slick with a decent chat client and some nice extras such as a 'shout meter' and live polls, set by the broadcaster. It's also possible to pause the stream, which is cached until you resume playing.

Ratings: Y
Tags: Y
Comments: Y
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

kyte
http://www.kyte.tv
Launched: April 2007



Like Stickam, kyte is something of a hybrid service of which live video streaming is just a part. Also in the mix are photos, music and polls which can all be packaged up within your embeddable 'channel.' However, kyte's key market differentiator is its mobile component which, assuming you've got a compatible handset and a sufficiently meaty data allowance, enables you to broadcast direct from your handset.

Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

Operator11
http://operator11.com
Launched: April 2007



Operator11's USP is letting more than one person into 'the studio' allowing the operator/director/net jockey controlling the video stream to cut back and forth between various contributor feeds. It's an interesting development of the single camera model which potentially moves the medium nearer to broadcast TV, although it also serves as a reminder that successfully editing video on the fly is a great deal harder than it looks.

Ratings: Y
Tags: Y
Comments: Y
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

blogTV
http://www.blogtv.com
Launched: May 2007



blogTV isn't short on functionality but suffers from a somewhat cluttered interface when viewed alongside the cleaner designs of Ustream and Mogulus. It's 7,500 channels are grouped into nine categories with 'My Life' predictably being the most populated. One nice feature for producers is the ability to pick a co-host whose video stream appears alongside your own with viewers able to interchange the two using a slider.

Ratings: Y
Tags: Y
Comments: Y
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

Mogulus
http://www.mogulus.com
Launched: June 2007



Currently in closed beta, Mogulus focuses more on the production side of live video, offering a fully featured browser-based 'studio' (requires Flash 9) to finesse your broadcast. In contrast, the viewing experience is pretty basic, eschewing chat, comments, ratings and the like in favour of a more classically televisual interface (on/off, mute, volume and, er, that's it). It even goes so far as to mimic static as the channel 'tunes in'. It's certainly the least cluttered of the sites discussed here and should provide a good platform for them to gradually introduce more functionality. I've got five beta invites to giveaway - mail me if you want one.

Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: N
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: N

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

Veodia
http://www.veodia.com
Launched: April 2007



Veodia is a distributed live streaming product for embedding in blogs and corporate sites and doesn't aggregate any content on its site beyond a couple of sample videos. Unlike most of the alternatives (which use Flash) it streams using MPEG-4/H.264. As a consequence the embedded video lacks any social media features such as comments or chat.

Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: N
Viewer count: N
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

YouCams
http://www.youcams.com
Launched: Unknown



Like Veodia, YouCams' focus is on distributed live video (via an embeddable widget) rather than aggregation, although it positions itself as a facilitator of social networking chat rather than as a provider of streaming technology.

Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: N

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

mystreams.tv
http://mystreams.tv
Launched: Unknown



The ugly sister of the live video streaming family, mystreams.tv is a UX disaster, plastered in large banner ads and forever opening new windows. Avoid.

Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: N
Embedding: N
Recorded shows: N

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

Whilst it's ultimately a matter of horses for courses when it comes to choosing a live video streaming service, my personal vote would be with Ustream.tv with Mogulus the one to watch.

TouchGraph Facebook Browser

Continuing the theme of interesting interfaces, check out the below screencap from TouchGraph Photos, a Java-based Facebook app which maps your friends and their relationships using coloured bubbles (and photos when your more zoomed in). It's similar to the popular Friend Wheel app (175,000 adds and counting) but with a slicker interface and a focus on navigating your friends' photos. They've employed the same interface in tools for exploring both Google and Amazon.

TUN3R: old skool radio discovery

Kooky interface of the week award goes to radio discovery site TUN3R which presents visitors with a giant radio 'dial' populated with thumbnail images of assorted online radio stations. Drag the 'needle' over a thumbnail and you hear a recent sample of the station's output. Beneath the dial you get details of the streaming format and location, a screengrab of the station's homepage and a sample of the recent playlist (if available).

Randomly clicking around the mosaic proves entertaining for a minute or two, although it's the search functionality which is more likely to generate a genuine musical match; typing in the name of an artist highlights every station on the dial which has recently played one of their tracks. Nice. You can also filter by genre or language or search the contents of the station's homepage. Most of the featured stations are promoted for free, although there also an option to buy space in a million dollar homepage stylee.

Whilst I suspect I may not be revisiting TUN3R on a regular basis, it's a interesting attempt to recreate the physicality of analogue radio's dial-twiddling experience (you even get a touch of static when you're roving around the dial) and much more compelling than a list of the stations could ever be.

Top 10 best Facebook applications

You've got to hand it to Facebook. The rollout of Facebook Platform was a masterstroke, not only getting them kudos with developers but also making their site sticky as hell, with a seemingly constant supply of new applications to tempt you away from your work. Whilst many of the apps won't stay installed on your profile for long, there are a few diamonds in the rough. Below is a round-up of ten of the best.

BandTracker - automatically pulls in the artists from the Favourite Music section of your profile and alerts you when they're playing your city. Also creates decent aggregation pages around each band, pulling in videos from YouTube and lists from Last.fm.

Eating - A neat little app from restaurant review site menuism, enabling you to share your dining experiences and discover new eateries. Slightly let down by a North American bias (no, I don't want to travel to London, Ontario for my evening meal...)

Flixster - nice integration of the movie site of the same name (reviewed here) which pulls in your existing ratings (something iLike would do well to get sorted), shows what your friends have been watching and provides access to the fiendishly addictive Never-Ending Movie Quiz.

Friend Stats - creates a page of lists and charts visualising aggregate data on your facebook chums. So, now I know that the majority of my friends are liberal graduates who like music and drinking, watching Lost, listening to Muse and reading John Steinbeck...

Interview - like The Guardian Weekend magazine Q&A feature (only with a slightly smaller readership), Interview asks you a stream of user-submitted questions which you can then add to your profile, letting everyone know how witty and erudite you are.

iRead - expose your bookshelf to your friends, detailing what you've read, what you're reading now and what's next on your list. You can find books by author, title or ISBN or import your Amazon wishlist. Once added, you can rate, review or recommend each title and find others who have read it.

myTV - share your favourite YouTube videos with your friends without leaving the comfort of Facebook. A slick interface and the option to import your favourites from YouTube are the icing on the cake.

TV Shows - release your inner Nick Horby and rank your favourite TV shows. There's 15,760 titles in the database, delivering fairly decent recommendations based on your list. The app also includes TV news and listings for the US, the UK, Canada and Australia.

Where I've Been - colour code a map of the world according to where you've lived, visited and want to visit. Turns out I'm not that well travelled after all...

wis.dm - encourages users to ask and answer yes/no questions on any conceivable topic. Strangely addictive although liable to quickly give away your moral and political leanings.

My digital life in numbers

I seem to have hit a bunch of digital milestones recently. Here's a summary:

• 100 blog posts (viewed by 20,000 unique users)
• 350 eBay deals
• 800 del.icio.us bookmarks
• 1,500 Flickr photos (viewed 35,000 times)
• 12,000 Last.fm tracks

(mental note: get out more).

10 things I'd be blogging about if I wasn't so busy

Work is eating my soul at the moment. Here are ten things I'd be blogging about at greater length if I wasn't so damn busy:

The BBC Radio Player - which is 5 years old today. My first major project at the BBC, the Radio Player now generates 23 million hours of live and on-demand listening to BBC Radio every month. Not too shabby.

i'm in like with you - strangely addictive Web 2.0 style flirting game where you collect points which you can then use to bid for attention. Invite-only beta at the mo (thanks Jo for mine) - mail me if you want one (dan at fabricoffolly.co.uk).

Spock - a search engine for finding people. Also in invite-only beta (I've got a couple left if you want to mail me, as above).

Jindabyrne - outstanding Aussie flick based on the Raymond Carver short story 'So Much Water So Close to Home', starring Laura Linney and Gabriel Byrne. Guaranteed a spot in my Top 30 films of 2007 (here's the 2006 list).

Video annotation (a.k.a. deep tagging) - an interesting new growth area in online video (see Mojiti, veotag, Viddler.com), although Click.TV was recently taken offline. The BBC is currently experimenting with audio annotation.

ubroadcast - in our on-demand, podcastable world, live broadcasting is a USP for this DIY streaming service. Not wildly different from Live365 and Shoutcast mind.

Babelgum - finally got access to this Joost-alike. You should now be able to get in without an invite but mail me if you want one.

Spotback - del.icio.us with ratings.

Heatmaps - ClickTale and tapefailure have joined Crazy Egg at the forefront of new ways of recording and visualising visitors' browsing activity on your site.

T-shirts 2.0 - liberate yourself from the tyranny of the Threadless voting community and get your crap design made into a real-life tee which you can then try and flog to your mates at one of the new breed of democratic t-shirt retailers (Bountee, CafePress, DNA STYLELAB, GoodStorm, innerTee, Spreadshirt, Zazzle).

Right, back to work...

Mogopop

Creating browseable text-based content for iPods has historically been a manual and rather tedious affair, as I discovered when creating a prototype Glastonbury festival guide at work last year (which spawned the portable version of BBC Electric Proms website). Whilst a number of simple text converters are available (e.g. Text2iPod X, iPod Notes Packager), more sophisicated content has tended to require a fair amount of fiddling around with HTML tags. Until now.



Launched in early January, Mogopop aims to provide an end-to-end solution for creating, downloading and transferring packages of text and other media (audio, video and pictures) to your iPod. In order to sync content you need to install the Mogopop Manager (a free download for PC or Mac). It's then simply a case of choosing a content package from one of the dozen available channels (Events, Guides, Music, Videos+, Games, People, Books, Education, Travel, Food & Drink, Sports, Pix) and plugging in your iPod. Once synced the content appears under Extras > Notes.



Content creation requires (free) registration and is done via a drag-and-drop web interface above, which enables you to easily link pages and media assets which it then bundles up into a package ready for download. You get 50MB of free online storage to upload audio, video and pictures to your 'media suitcase' (accepted file formats are .mp3 and .m4a for audio,.m4v for video and .jpeg, .gif, .tiff, .pdf, and .png for pictures). To test it out, I created a content package pulling together recent posts from this blog (linked to from the badge at the foot of this post) which proved to be a surprisingly straightforward process.



Raising awareness of the service is likely to be a key challenge for Mogopop and the ability to 'iPod Your MySpace Page' with an embeddable widget to promote it could help nudge the service closer to the mainstream. The content offer isn't particularly strong as yet (the most downloaded packages include The Wine Spectator's Top 100 Wines of 2006 and a port of the Wikipedia entry on World of Warcraft) although it's still relatively early days for the site.

The bigger question is how long before the iPod follows the iPhone in offering integrated Wi-Fi access which could mean game over for any businesses relying on sideloading to mobile devices.

fabric of folly

plug in and iPod it
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Why Seven Ages of Rock rocks

It's rare for me to post on something work-related but I feel compelled to point you in the direction of the awesome Seven Ages of Rock site which launched this week in support of a new landmark music documentary series starting this Saturday on BBC TWO. What's particularly rocking my world about the site is the way in which it augments quality BBC video and editorial with feeds from some of the best-in-class Web 2.0 services. So, in addition to the exclusive mini-docs (with embeddable promo clips - yay!), photos, album reviews and related links for each featured artist, you get a biography from Wikipedia, photos from Flickr and a chart of the most listened to tracks from Last.fm. The content can be navigated by programme, artist, event or via an interactive timeline which maps key milestones from the seven eras. Users are also invited to have their say on any of the programmes or events. The design and build of the site were carried out by London-based agency Airlock whilst the brilliant Matt Walton produced the whole thing from the BBC side. Cracking job guys. Now over to Dave Grohl talking about learning to play the pillows...

Sputtr.

If your current browser homepage is set to Google but you have a penchant for Web 2.0 sites then you might like to check out the improbably named Sputtr. It enables you to search 36 different web services by typing into the search box and clicking the appropriate icon. All of the Web 2.0 poster children are there (del.icio.us, Flickr, Technorati et al.) and it's all wrapped up in cuddly Wii-esque interface. I like it.

Spool.fm

Am liking the look of new online music player, Spool.fm. Whilst the AJAX interface is still a little rough around the edges, the drag-and-drop playlist builder and listen with a friend feature are pretty killer. It's especially welcome now Pandora has announced its intention to start blocking users from outside the US.

fabric of folly widgetized

Thanks to yourminis fabric of folly is now a widget (embedded below) which can easily be added to your desktop, startpage, blog or social networking page. Nice.

Looks like 2007 is indeed turning out to be the year of the widget.