USTREAM.tv’s recently launched iPhone application now has almost a million downloads. This isn’t pure mobile television because it’s plling from uStream online feed via wi-fi as opposed to a broadcast signal; but it’s showing the way for mobile video delivery and user experience.
Ustream is the second live video application on the iPhone after the U.K. based streaming television provider LiveStation.
This Ustream Viewing Appliation allows users to login with their account, view both live broadcast and recorded video, with interactive chat functionality, and search for live broadcast.
Five million member in a privacy-free Facebook
Each week, a million new members are added in the United States and five million globally on Facebook, the world’s largest social network, with 175 million members.
Problem now is the privacy. As New York Times wonders this week, “When everyone is a friend, is anything private?” “The popularity of Facebook and other social networking sites has promoted the sharing of all things personal, dissolving the line that separates the private from the public.”
Avarage number of “friends” per member, worldwide, is 120, according to a company spokesman.
CBSSports.com sets a new record selling video ads inventory
CBSSports.com has sold out its video ads inventory for the upcoming March Madness On Demand, $30 million, up 20 percent from last year.
This year CBS will feature a high-quality video player using Silverlight that will stream video at speads up to 1.5 Mbps. CBS expects 4.8 million unique viewers.
Biggest audience is at the beginning of the tournament when most of the games are on during the day, and people are at work.
Sports fans are growing more accustomed to watching games online that they would ordinarily miss because of scheduling. Tiger Woods drew millions of streams during the U.S. Open finals that happened on a Monday and again this year when his return to golf generated 2.5 million streams on a Wednesday.
Thomson Reuters plans video on-demand service
Thomson Reuters will launch in June 2009 an ambitious new video-on-demand service for its financial services clients (and not open to the general public), with thousands of searchable videos and transcripts on a range of topics. Its goal is to become a one-stop source for business people.
The service is meant for the 550,000 financial professionals who have a Thomson Reuters screen on their desks. It seeks creating a new niche, and making the company’s core business of financial data and news more attractive in the competition with Bloomberg and Dow Jones Newswires. It is not competing directly with establishes sources like CNBC or Bloomberg Television.
According to the New York Times, the Thomson Reuters service has features that allow fast access to specific pieces of video, whether produced in a studio or recorded at a conference of a hearing. Each video is accompanied on screen by a searchable transcript, with a set of key words highlighted at the top. Clicking anywhere on the transcript causes the video to jump to that point.
A user can search the entire database of videos for any that mention a particular topic, person, industry or company.
The site will be built around a series of vertical channels on broad topics, each with a set of subchannels.
Thomson Reuters wants its clients, like research firms, banks and investment firms, to supply video of their own people discussing financial news, and even create their own channels on the site.
