A lot of people don’t realize just how costly and bandwidth intensive streaming live video on the web is from a back-end perspective. There’s a reason YouTube hasn’t launched a live service and Yahoo had to shut its down. Most end users never have to deal with such concerns because they use a service like Ustream, Justin.tv or Stickam to handle their needs on a small level. But what if you have a startup or a company that wants live streaming to be a key part of your business? Then you may want to check out Stickam’s new StreamAPI.
StreamAPI is the white label version of a service Stickam’s been offering to several larger companies for a while now. While most startups probably won’t need to scale as big as an MTV-sized audience, there is still a need to have the appropriate resources to stream live to a large audience. StreamAPI can handle that while giving clients an easy to use, customizable interface and very low per-viewer hour stream rates. How low? Well, while Ustream may charge up to $1 per view hour, with StreamAPI, Stickam is willing to go as low as $0.05 per view hour (depending on quality).
And a bigger draw of StreamAPI may be that you can set it up without an expert Flash developer. The service offers a drag and drop editor that is very simple to use. Stickam CEO Steven Fruchter walked me through the process of making your own video streaming area — it took just about a minute to have everything in place and ready to go.
“We’re trying to power all live video on the internet,” Fruchter told me. And at such low prices and with a service that’s easy to use, StreamAPI is certainly a compelling offering. Stickam launched in February of 2006, before all of its big rivals, but today it’s often overshadowed by many of them. This new API is its attempt to level the playing field by providing an invaluable service to a lot of smaller startups.
Cool idea, I’m sure we’re going to see many more live feeds on the larger blogs. Loving the one here!
the easy of use looks attractive. stickam is doing good job by providing low cost and easy of use together.
I love the idea of this and already have some ideas of how use it to enhance my online business.
This is a great good news! Now, I find an ease in hosting live videos online.
“Well, while Ustream may charge up to $1 per view hour, with StreamAPI, Stickam is willing to go as low as $0.05 per view hour (depending on quality).”
What is the point of comparing one service’s top rate with another’s bottom rate? Unless those service levels are equal (which is not stated or implied), it would seem to be a meaningless comparison.
Otherwise, a very interesting report.
Well, while Ustream may charge up to $1 per view hour, with StreamAPI, Stickam’s highest rate for HD 1024 kbit stream is only $0.20 per view hour.
Fixed, and still looking like a great deal.
It’s hard to compare the services because neither offer identical plans. But I’ll compare the average figures;
Stickam seems cheaper;
HD comes in at around $0.20/Viewer Hour
512Kbps averages $0.10/Viewer Hour
uStream’s Watershed averages around $0.40/Hr for 750Kbps (may be wrong about that bitrate).
Pricing is important but service is vital for streaming.
Stickam is the WORST. Nuf said..
Alex,
Explain..
how is this different from just hosting your own mogulus channel for free ? brain is not working too fast today.
No advertisements and no branding. This solution is better for larger companies rather than small bloggers.
We all know they are owned by a Japanese Porn company…
hmmm- wonder who this target audience is.
Nice.. tis true.
Yep, here are a few of the articles about their porn ties:
http://tech.yah...og/devlin/12192
http://www.boin...munity-for.html
I had a buddy who worked at Stickam awhile back and said the guy in his office did the webdesign for the porn arm.
Interesting, tempting to have a go.
I like your posts MG. Keep up the good work.
I kind dig the posts as well.
Congrats to the Stickam folks. Adding to the other offerings. This could be big!
Mr. Siegler, help me out here. TC highlights cost-effective solutions for small businesses, entrepreneurs, developers alike.
Today I may not need this tool..but maybe “tomorrow”.
Hard to articulate my issue here. TC is a digital library of good info…info that I may need later, not today.
Not a forum…not just CrunchBase…but something else.
Sure CunchBase is handy as a lookup…but I’d love to put out a business requirement here at TC, someway and be provided potential service providers, solutions, maybe even costing info too.
Maybe it’s an area for service providers to connect with professionals. Place to mingle, put tech requirements, business objectives about there and for service providers to tell me why there solution is best fit.
The packaging is great. Easy to use. Simple. Pricing wise, $0.45/GB is not great. (Other folks (i.e. octoshape) offer below $0.20/GB.
I am trying Amazon’s $0.17/GB with a streaming service offered through EC2. Don’t know yet how it will perform.
But again, packaging is key. Technology and pricing is not enough to succeed. So congrats to Stickam for the simple and easy-to-use offering.
Good luck
This sounds like a great solution for non-profits.
That’s really cool.
This is great! I’ll check out the service. Live streaming
anytime there’s an article about Ustream you see a lot of anonymous fanboys who seem a little too enthusiastic.
Anytime the article is about a different live video outfit you see a lot of overly angry and defensive commenters.
Rumor has it that ustream execs do a lot of astroturfing.
Whether it’s true or not, something is def up. Compare a few posts.
Excellent .this will be a great hit someday live streaming is the best