Justin.tv will become the future platform for lifecasting [live video blogging-even if not 24/7 ]. Due to the non-anomymous nature of lifecasting, this platform will become a very reliable source of everything internetish …This is huge people.

Back when blogger was launched, no one cared. And now..

This is the next big thing. If human beings dont mind spending hours and hours on Digg without any monetary benefit, then anything is possible.

but i absolutely despise publicity written that way just for eyeballs. 20 years from now i should ask justin’s current partners why he isn’t dead yet.

this is so very 1996, i’m stumped.

justin.tv hasn’t put out any REAL content yet, and that could change if the right person came along. I can’t believe the #uniques with such boring content, it makes no sense to me.

I (non-IT-technical) have had to help 4 different friends set their EVDO Expresscards up just for IP access. What tom (thank you!) wrote would cause them to cross their eyes and pass out; I would have to spend a few days with it researching and experimenting.

Real time, MOBILE streaming is not that common. Maybe I should look, but it hasn’t rolled across my radar from anywhere else.

I’ll eat my words when the time comes….

1. Justin.tv has no valuable content - because Justin Kan is boring as are his little Y Combinator geeky buddies.

2. Justin.tv has no defensible technology - because Tom just told us how to do it.

3. Justin.tv got lots of press and has next to nothing to show for it - because it has no stickiness.

4. Y Combinator lays another egg. Guess that’s not news anymore.

5. TechCrunch is going downhill. Not news either.

Then on the client you just need to point your written flash video player client to the rtmp or (rtmpt for http tunneling, since firewalls/SPI will deny port 1935 TCP packets) of the live file stream at your flash media server. You should measure the bandwidth of the client and buffer/stream appropriately. Emmbed the client to an html on a web server, you’re done. And it’s cross platform too…. all browsers have flash plug-ins, even my cell phone has a flash player…

“Cause myspace was new and original and based on cutting edge technology.”

If you’re familiar with how MySpace got started, its parent company, Intermix, owned a number of properties with significant traffic and large email lists, which were leveraged to promote MySpace. Furthermore, MySpace got into the game early on. This is 2007, not 2003. The market has changed. At the time MySpace launched, Friendster was a dominant player but it stumbled and MySpace took advantage of it. The playing field was much more limited then. Try launching a social network today. Because the MySpaces of the world have already established dominant positions, comparing the market today to the market in 2003 is an apples to oranges comparison.

“Yeah, please back that one up with more than “look at Wallstrip”. It will only take 1 or 2 people.”

thugonline.ulmb.com/?p=227
digitaltv-weblog.com/50226711/talent_agency_is_aiming_to_find_web_video_stars.php
latimes.com/technology/la-fi-loca18may18,1,6158047.story
broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6412301.html
mashable.com/2006/09/27/youtube-stars-land-tv-deal/
mashable.com/2007/02/11/youtube-to-tv-myspace-movie-creator-jumps/

I think this more than validates the fact that Hollywood is using services like YouTube to find new talent, and that talent is more than willing to “sell out” for Hollywood deals.

“Good point, they could use a whole lot of help with distribution. Ideally, that would involve deals with tivo, wii/opera, xboxlive, sonyPS, appletv, comcast, directv, and dishnetwork.”

I think you missed my point. What I am saying is that technology people should stick to innovating distribution channels and leave the content creation to the pros. Justin.tv doesn’t need any help with distribution because he doesn’t have any content that’s worth distributing! Entities like Comcast and DirecTV are unlikely to have any interest in distributing Justin.tv because he’s not a character that has a whole lot of mainstream appeal and the way he spends his time is hardly exciting. At a very basic level, the question a network has to ask when pitched an idea is: will this attact an audience that I can sell enough advertising against to be profitable? Given the fact that Justin.tv has received ample mainstream press but still only has a small, niche audience, I think it’s safe to say that his lack of appeal has been established.

“…outside of the fact that there is no defensible technology here and competition is growing”
>’Cause myspace was new and original and based on cutting edge technology.

“That said, I’m sure a few talented people will be discovered through services like this. And guess what will happen? Hollywood will scoop them up.”
>Yeah, please back that one up with more than “look at Wallstrip”. It will only take 1 or 2 people.

“A lot of technology people fail to realize that there’s a huge difference between content distribution and content creation. ”
> Good point, they could use a whole lot of help with distribution. Ideally, that would involve deals with tivo, wii/opera, xboxlive, sonyPS, appletv, comcast, directv, and dishnetwork.

BTW, I am a chemist living 1k+ miles from “the valley” and have no idea why i’m defending this idea.

Sad stuff Nick. Really sad given that at the time you posted the article, the new site wasn’t even live.

Michael Arrington - when is Nick Gonzales getting fired for blatantly advertising Justin.tv and writing totally worthless articles on TechCrunch?

I’m calling it. It’s time for Nick Gonzales to resign.

Enough!

Nick — please show some semblance of journalistic integrity!

Everybody in Web 2.0 loves to talk about advertising and sponsorship but few seem to recognize that to cut meaningful advertising and sponsorship deals (i.e. the type that would make it worthwhile to walk around with a camera on your head all day), you need to have a large audience. Contrary to how it sometimes appears, advertisers and sponsors are not looking to spend money and get nothing in return. When you look at something like Justin.tv, I think it’d be hard to argue that a major advertiser or sponsor would receive any tangible return from being involved. Justin doesn’t have a large audience, and his lifestyle doesn’t align very well with the image most brands would find makes their brand appealing to mainstream consumers.

That said, I’m sure a few talented people will be discovered through services like this. And guess what will happen? Hollywood will scoop them up. It’s already happening on YouTube and Michael posted earlier about the CBS acquisition of WallStrip. The rest of the wannabe entertainers will, at best, have to be satisfied that they had 15 minutes of fame in front of a few viewers (if not 0 viewers). The truth is that not everybody is talented and not everybody is going to be a star. From a pure sociological standpoint, society would probably benefit if more people were more realistic about this. User-generated content has its place, but I don’t have any problem saying that the hype around it probably both due to and contributing to an increasingly narcissistic culture.

That said, user-generated content isn’t all bad. It’s here to stay but I think that the people who aren’t insulated from all the hype in Silicon Valley don’t fully comprehend that professional content isn’t going anywhere and still accounts for the majority of the video content consumed by mainstream viewers. They don’t understand that the cost of producing quality content will never drop to $0, even if the powerful tools technology provides for content creation are cheap.

A lot of technology people fail to realize that there’s a huge difference between content distribution and content creation. There is no doubt that technology is having a huge impact on distribution, but I get the feeling that far too many “geeks” now believe that because they’ve developed new ways of distributing content, they know the entire entertainment business better than the people who actually run it. Technology has very little to do with creating compelling entertainment. Entertainment has alwas been, and will always be, about storytelling. The distribution channels will always be changing, but if you don’t have an interesting story to tell, you have nothing worth distributing.

Honestly, I want to make One Up Calacanis Cast, where I go buy a Corvette and Justin.tv it around town getting into heinous amounts of trouble. Beats 40 minutes of desk-on-camera time.

But then again, I’m a belligerant new media a-hole, and it works for me.

The biggest problem for Justin, and anybody else that wants to stream his or her life, is the fact that most people do not lead lives that are interesting to 99.9% of mainstream America. As John said, Justin’s life is mundane, and the average American has no interest in watching a Yale graduate who sits around with technology geeks all day, living off investor money. As sad as it may be, the entertainment that works best typically involves celebrities, athletes, models, materialism and sex. Justin is quite lacking in all those areas. Drama, glamour and gossip sell; lunches with 20-somethings who are brainstorming concepts that they can get VC funding for doesn’t sell. Following the lives of types of the people and storylines that Americans care about and find interesting has already been done with reality TV programming.

It’s also worth noting that neither service can be accessed through many corporate and educational firewalls (like those in my college). Possibly because of the blockage of UDP traffic.

.. that isn’t confusing at all….

They just need to decide if they want to provide content or streaming service. I think they can’t decide. If they want to provide content they are not doing very well. All you see is this guy sleeping until 10 am, drinking, sitting in front of a laptop, drinking, sleeping until 10 am, sit in front of a laptop… etc (BTW, when I worked at a startup I worked way more hours than this guy). They need to put some personalities, characters, conflict to it. Obviously justin doesn’t have a personality. Go do stories, get a press pass, investigate, follow around Gavin Newsom, ride along with the cops, travel and show users what to see, go to iraq and get embedded with the soldiers… For god sakes… do something mildly interesting and entertaining… There are so many ways of providing good quality content that can be entertaining and educational to users. If he likes to be a geek, review products on his show… Attack the many available demographics… They need to spin this around… it’s getting a bit old. They need to up their viewership to get the advertisers and make the real money. If just they had good content they could have advertised while they were getting good press….

And ff they want to be a streaming provider, they need to get their sh*t together. The competition is strong and way better than what they have. Adding “tips”, or voting is not an innovation that will subdue the others….

Let’s see how they turn out. I hope they end with success.