By
emeadowsApril 25, 2013
The live streaming site Ustream increased its viewership recently with the help of citizen journalism. During the manhunt for Boston bombing suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev, live information was streamed from a police scanner via the free platform. The site drew an audience of 2.5 million, with 265,000 simultaneous viewers at its peak moment. Notably, nearly half tuned in from their mobile devices. Continue reading Citizen Journalism: Ustream Covers Boston Manhunt Live
According to Nielsen’s Vice Chair Susan Whiting, who was a part of a panel discussion analyzing disruption in traditional media usage at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Wednesday, consumers are not abandoning one platform for another. Instead, they’re spending more time than ever viewing and reading news and entertainment content, using mobile devices as an access point. Continue reading Mobile Activity on Upswing, Opens Doors for Mobile Ad Biz
By
Rob ScottApril 3, 2011
CNN reports that the debate regarding whether Google is a media company or tech company — a publisher of content or indexer of content — may soon be over, as the company prepares to morph YouTube into an online “studio system” for a new era of content production. CNN suggests Google is already a media company, but the question should more accurately address what kind of media company; perhaps “one that operates by the economics of the Internet, with no legacy ties to the economics of television, movies, or publishing.”
In recent months, Google has been investing heavily in its YouTube division, including: the hiring of content execs from Netflix and Paramount, recent acquisitions to enhance its current quality of offerings, plans to reportedly spend $100 million on developing new celebrity “channels,” and more. Google hopes to expand YouTube’s dominance in the UGC market to include niche programming and mass entertainment.
Of course, what makes the online video resource unique in terms of serving as a content provider, is that it has very little overhead. As compared to other media companies that are more directly involved in actual production, YouTube’s marginal costs are nearly zero. Advertising revenue is earned the same way whether viewers are clicking on a cute video about someone’s cat — or a professional basketball game (Google is in talks with the NBA and NHL to show live games on YouTube).
YouTube also enjoys the potentially infinite number of specialty channels the Internet provides, an approach that is not practical for cable. It may not matter from day-to-day which channels do well and which do not. As long as YouTube makes the platform available, the content can regularly evolve.