PDA

View Full Version : JustinTV Cleans House



cseeman
02-18-2013, 05:20 PM
Maybe Stickam's closing was just the tip of the iceberg.
I guess times are tough at some of these CDNs.

Go to JustinTV
http://www.justin.tv

at the bottom of the page see
Check out Exec: Justin.tv cofounder Justin's newest house cleaning service
which takes you to
https://iamexec.com/cleaning

Note that Justin even lists it in his team profile.
http://www.justin.tv/p/about_us

Given the competitive nature of the industry I'm going to guess
Ustream will offer to wash your car.

Livestream will offer to do both but you will be required to buy all cleaning supplies from them.

andrewzarian
02-18-2013, 05:56 PM
Wow its really scary. I honestly think stickam closing is just the tip of the iceberg

cseeman
02-18-2013, 06:28 PM
When you start looking at the industry it does seem we may see some thinning of the heard.
Consider Stickam gone.
Justin going into an entirely unrelated field.
Livestream developing hardware and software and the paid software isn't locked to their service.

I do know that many of these companies started with venture capital and it may be they're not yielding a good return on their investment.

A few years back I went to the Livestream office in NYC and they mentioned they could drop the entire free service and it would have virtually no impact on them. Basically ad based free services don't seem to be turning a profit or even covering costs.

andrewzarian
02-18-2013, 06:59 PM
I think its really tough. Many of these companies depend on investors and venture money. when the investors see that there is no real revune model in place they get scared. I think we will see a few independent streaming companies around but at the end of the day Youtube will be the king

cseeman
02-18-2013, 07:13 PM
YouTube, actually Google, may dominate the free services at some point.
Even as a free service I still have some issues with using them though. I wouldn't doubt they'll be improving things though.

Livestream, Ustream, Bambuser all have paid services. They aren't dependent on free ad based income (and New Livestream has no ads at all but free has other limits).

It seems JustinTV only has a fee to remove ads for the viewer, not the producer channel. I'm not sure how they'll survive.

andrewzarian
02-18-2013, 07:16 PM
My issue with JTV is the fact that they have turned their back in Internet Broadcasters and even Life Casters. If your not gaming they dont care. Even thought they have created a site dedicated to gaming JTV still only supports and helps video game streams.

cseeman
02-18-2013, 07:39 PM
Yup, Twitch.
You can see what their business thinking is
http://www.twitch.tv/p/advertise
They believe game growth will drive advertisers.

I wonder if Justin is just being left to wither.

andrewzarian
02-18-2013, 07:41 PM
I think thats fine as long as they keep it on Twitch and not JTV. We used to have a great relationship with JTV the one day all the emails stopped

cseeman
02-18-2013, 08:00 PM
We used to have a great relationship with JTV the one day all the emails stopped
I think I've heard that from a couple of other producers as well. They may be pulling back resources. Their analysis on Twitch seems to be the anthesis. They are presenting arguments that seem to say there's no viable ad based revenue model for anything outside of gaming. I can see bifurcating services since each my benefit from different branding and service models but when you have one service whose business presentation to advertisers practically says, "don't advertise on our other service," that sends a message.

Spencer Kobren
02-18-2013, 08:34 PM
There is no doubt in my mind that Google will dominate the game. Sadly, we saw what happened to Stickam... The future of Ustream, et al, will be dependent on whether their principals take the time to learn from the failures of their predecessors. Personally I don't think that they will. I hope I'm wrong...

cseeman
02-18-2013, 08:37 PM
Currently Google doesn't provide a paid ad free service.
I think this is the ground Ustream and Bambuser are staking out.
Livestream is doing that although differently.

Of course if Google provides a paid service that all bets are off.

Spencer Kobren
02-18-2013, 08:46 PM
Currently Google doesn't provide a paid ad free service.
I think this is the ground Ustream and Bambuser are staking out.
Livestream is doing that although differently.

Of course if Google provides a paid service that all bets are off.

They will:) It's only a matter of time.

MvN
02-18-2013, 09:06 PM
YouTube (Google) is not in a position to handle live social entertainment. Technically? Yes. Socially? No. If you've ever used the comment system at YouTube (which they also use as a chat room for their live streams) you can clearly see the blatant disconnect of service and social interaction it encourages. That's not to say social interaction doesn't happen, however, it's not what people want or are looking for in the live social entertainment realm.

As an owner of a somewhat new live streaming service, I can tell you the primary cause of failure amongst existing services is the investors. I don't blame investors for wanting a return, I get that. But to sacrifice user experience over money? That will lead to what we're seeing right now, with the likes of Stickam shutting down and others soon to follow suit.

I, too, am curious as to why Justin.tv is being kept alive. They have a cash cow (Twitch) and truly have no need to keep Justin.tv around. Unless it is for legal reasons? Who knows.

LiveStream started out ambitious and impressive with Mogolus. It's a shame they went the route of hardware, software and premium services. To be honest, though, their user experience grade gets a 2 out of 10.

blogTV is just a mess. I don't see it sticking around more than another year.

YouNow seems to be a service popular among kids. Which is unfortunate, because kids do not belong in live video environments. Period.

TinyChat I don't see closing any time soon. They have their audience and it seems to suit them well, from what I can see.

Ustream has more money than direction. What was once a top live streaming site has become a flavorless bowl of oatmeal. There's no innovation, and the way they force users to interact is disheartening (much like YouTube.)

I will say this, live social entertainment is an untapped market that people want. Nobody has been able to execute it properly, though. That's what I've set out to do. Albeit a long process, I do have a specific vision for live social entertainment and I have no doubt in my mind that it is here to stay.

With that said, ad revenue can support a live streaming service. I cannot go into details, but I will say Vaughn Live is not going any where anytime soon. Yes, even if we never released our VIP packages this spring.

erictimmer
02-18-2013, 09:14 PM
You gotta remember Justin is an entrepreneur at heart and Juntin.tv is a "mature" company in internet terms. There really isn't anything that needs to be done to it, in their point of view. With TWiTCH they saw a vertical that was taking off and saw that eSports will be as big as "normal" sports in the future, so they decided to go attack it. Selling ads to gamers and fans is a no brainer if you think about it.

Now the question is....."Will they keep JTV around?". Hard to tell, but my guess is that the founders have moved on from daily operations and put an "ops" person in charge. Since they are private there is no way to know if they are making money or bleeding it.

PS. Maybe it's time to start pushing live streams to Google+/YouTube as well??? I know GeekBeat pushes to JTV, Ustream, and Google+/YouTube. They only recently set up a common IRC chat in order to not have to manage 3 different chat rooms, though they are still doing that.

andrewzarian
02-19-2013, 05:56 AM
Mark Very well said! I have had many discussions with the guys over at Stickam and there are a number of reason why it failed. obviously money was the main reason. I think its great to have investors thats how most of the great internet giants have started out but the one difference is that they have created a successful revenue model.