JustinTV Cleans House

[andrewzarian]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.