Today, Facebook is launching a new “Live Stream Box” feature which allows for Facebook Pages to offer their own live video and chat area. And Ustream will be the first to take advantage of it with Ustream on Facebook, a new service to provide live video support to select Facebook users.
This functionality is an extension of what Ustream and Facebook did with some Jonas Brothers concerts last month — events which drew huge numbers. How huge? This huge, according to Ustream:
- 1.5 million unique posts were made via Facebook Live Feed
- 23K average posts per minute
- More than 100K users joined the webcast after seeing their friend’s comment on Facebook
- 974K total unique viewers watched the one hour webcast
- Ustream reports the Jonas Brothers webcast on Facebook surpassed the largest live video event they have hosted for any music artist
So clearly, there’s a big demand for certain live events via Facebook, and Ustream is jumping on it, as Facebook’s preferred partner.
Apparently, how this will work is that on Facebook Pages there will now be a way to add a “Live” tab, which will house things such as the Ustream on Facebook feature. Previously, beyond the Jonas Brothers, Facebook has tested this with CNN and the NBA All-Star game. Here’s what Facebook has to say:
Today, Facebook is launching the Facebook Live Stream Box as a feature that any website owner or developer can use to enable Facebook users to connect, share, and post updates in real-time as they witness an event online. Websites can run the Live Stream Box next to live streaming videos of concerts, speeches, sporting events, webcasts, TV shows, presentations, or webinars. Sites can also run the Live Stream Box in multi-player games, or with any other experience where many people are visiting a website at the same time.
But Ustream’s funtionality is not for everyone yet, due to what will undoubtedly be high demand, we’re told. Any artist or person who thinks they could benefit from the Ustream functionality, can apply to have the feature turned on here. With it, you’ll get not only the live player, but a customizable banner that can link to places like iTunes or Amazon (obviously important for artists).
Right now, there are two versions of the player: A free ad-supported version, and a white-label version. The free version is the one with limited sign-ups allowed right now, so click that link above quickly if you think you need the feature. The white-label version comes with a one-time development fee of $15,000. But you also get an ongoing subscription to Ustream’s white-label platform, Watershed.
Find out more information here. Eventually, Ustream hopes to port this Facebook experience over to its main site as well using Facebook Connect, we’re told.
Hi MG,
Awesome news. That’s why Facebook is ahead of MySpace on many fronts. I’m going to check out how good the video stream works.
Thanks for the great post.
Mani Raj
Havoc Marketing
Live on Ustream INSIDE of Facebook is sick. Where do all these people come up with these kind of ideas. I predict this will blow up the whole internet. Run!!!!
This is LAME! Open to people by application only….
UStream – all buzz no substance.
I can’t wait for someone to develop a real live video application on Facebook.
I actually think this very interesting!
It is a new form of premium media on the internet, in a major social network. Progress like this get us more and more closer to truly interactive TV.
This is definitely a step in that direction. I can only imagine the brand advertisers you would like to get their hands on those 1 million tweenies.
Probably why Ustream is only allowing premium broadcasters as it seems like a smart way to build this out.
Erin
agreed. any post about ustream always has a dozen fake comments that are more enthusiastic than your average commenter would be.
ustream, stop astroturfing.
Ustream promotes ads on its feeds and sometimes those ads are inappropriate for the content. Facebook would have looked at TenM3 for live feed sharing but they support always-on IP cameras and not webcams as yet.
Overall, live feeds will be clearly included in peoples profiles down the road and this could be a short cut to internal development.
This isn’t a partnership – this is just Facebook releasing a feature and Ustream updating their sorry Facebook application.
Myspace is lame lame, it was lie that made teenagers think they have their own website ( Aka: custom HTML and CSS profiles. which are too ugly )
for many years, myspace did not upgrade until recently, Facebook was out side the box thinker, creating and innovating new things, facebook has entrepreneural leadership with vision, unlike myspace which had “a cool Tom” leadership that is happy with keeping the status-quo and thinking in web 1.0 terms.
Dude Mani,
You are hurting your own brand by being so annoying with these comments.
Ustream + Facebook = AMAZING!
Facebook and Ustream are partnering? Holy crap.
That’s one hell of a stamp of approval.
Not really. There is no partnership here. Ustream updated its Facebook app, and issued a press release.
Let’s ask why they have to manually approve the broadcasters….is it because they’re such a small site that they can’t handle the traffic?
MG – huge news!
People have been asking for this forever!!
This partnership proves that Facebook is closing the gap on Twitter and that Ustream is the leading live video service.
I’m on-board!
ustream is only good for watching live sports. everything else in it is crap. it would be intresting too see boxee support ustream or justin.tv then i could watch all my live sports via the web on my tv.
I watched Ashton Kutcher beat CNN on Ustream and enjoyed it.
This will change the landscape of online media. Facebook is the LARGEST social network in the WORLD. Ustream’s live events INSIDE of it will mean TV DIES!
Congrats to Ustream and Facebook!
I think this is signficant because it shows how Facebook is the leader. They were the first to “open platform” and now they’re the first to “open live events.” Genius.
I think this is a win for both companies. Facebook is the leader in social networking and Ustream is the leader in live streaming.
I’m highly interested in this new feature for Facebook. Ustream makes it look like a better option to start using social media, for celebrities and anybody that wants to market, especially bloggers and people that are normally on the internet. I’ll have to check out Facebook more often.
I’m excited to hear this. I saw the Jonas Bros event and thought, “I want that.” Now, I can!
Thanks to Ustream and Facebook for doing this. It will be a great tool for marketers and musicians.
~congrats!
Combine this with the new iPhone 3Gs Video features and life as we know it will cease to exist…
This move just killed justin.tv, stickam, blogtv.
Live is the way to go, and UStream has it on lock.
Game over. Ustream won.
Unreal….
This is a pretty limited live streaming feature. Imagine if MySpace had live streaming across their entire site using one of the more social music oriented streaming providers like Stickam.com or Justin.tv.
Now that would be a killer. Plus UStream is ridiculous with their pricing ($15,000 setup fee plus $879 per month)… Greedy much?
what do you mean more “music oriented”? Have you not been on Ustream lately?
Soulja Boy, Bow Wow, Sean Kingston, Diddy, Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg, Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato, Miley Cyrus, Weird Al…so many more are all using ustream, and they’re on a lot
Ustream is the most “music oriented” of any of the live streaming sites.
Anyone that thinks Facebook is not rising to the occasion, your crazy.
Facebook, your developers are riding with you full throttle! Let’s show the skeptics how to buy land in hell!
im pissed, i just built this same thing…. except it uses twitter too
it mashes twitter feed with facebook feed, so users can share a convo between platforms…
also in my version users can view a ‘friends only’ feed similar to the obama cnn version…
Why are you afraid to compete? A % of the population will prefer a twitter interface. Personally I like keeping my facebook more private and so twitter might be more advantageous… every good idea stood in the face of giants… don’t be afraid.. have some balls and compete..
This is crazy! FB is coming out with new stuff every day!
Justin.tv is dead.
justin.tv is not dead the game is still young.
This livebox feature is not to much of a game changer.
You can actually embed live streams on your myspace page already.
I see myspace aggressively using their media contacts to produce content for the live streaming medium to be embeded on celebrity myspace pages if they see this as a threat.
Justin.tv is dead. All they had was suicides anyways…
I’m missing something here, any Facebook page owner can create their own custom page using FBML and embed the live stream box as well as their own free USTREAM player…why the extra cost?
hi all you are welcome.
Great