A couple of days ago we wrote about Facebook’s new Live Stream Box funtionality. Ustream was the first to offer a live video solution for users with Facebook Pages. But the sign up for the free option is limited, and the white-label version carries a one-time fee of $15,000. Enter Stickam. It’s offering live video via its StreamAPI service to anyone. And there’s no set up fee and no monthly fee. But it will still cost you.
The StreamAPI solution is pay-as-you-go, with live video costing you 45 cents a gigabyte. That includes support for HD video, customizable solutions (with no Flash knowledge required) and analytics. It’s a similar approach that Stickam takes with its regular StreamAPI product.
On this sample Facebook page, you can see live video of traffic in LA.
Find out more here.
How in gods name do they think they are going to get away with 45 cents a gig?!
Even amazons insanely overpriced bandwidth is only .17 cents per GB.
Crazy.
Streaming live video (stream api) and serving files (s3) are two very different things. It should cost a fair amount more, and I think streamapi is one of the cheapest out there while still getting options for video quality up to HD.
However I don’t see how they compete on facebook with UStream being free….
Great comment that almost makes it look like you know what you are talking about.
S3 and EC2 both share the same bandwidth rates and the costs associated with streaming ( hardware ) are nominal – Its primarily a bandwidth issue. And if you are paying for the bandwidth, what does it matter if they offer “”HD”" – If you want to foot the bill, Il be happy to serve up blu-ray quality, after all- who gives a shit, you’re paying.
Except that 99,9% of Facebook users don’t know about S3 & EC2, and probably have a quite blurred idea of what “bandwidth” mean.
So 0,45$/GB not to have to worry about these things, and access a simple on-demand service is totally ok with them.
Most CDN BW rates can go down to less than 0,1$ if you’re a BW guzzler – which I suppose, will soon be the case for StreamAPI.
That leaves a healthy 0,35$ to absorb dev. cost and make profit. Pretty sound business model.
The only thing is : they need to be very precise estimating BW needs – in most of the cases, you have to pay for a yearly bulk.
Stickam is owned by porn companies:
http://www.nyti...nyt&emc=rss
Why do they need to charge for anything?
Because that is a benefit, not a feature.
I get a error
Is the missing k in ‘Live Video Fun[k]tionality…’ in title and link some sort of insider joke?
confused.
hahahahahaha missing ‘C’ that is
.
English language = difficult speech 4 me.
more confused
this isn’t the same thing as Ustream…this is just the video
Ustream is free, ad-supported and white-label….this is all pay as you go
i cant see the streaming, nothing show up there?
How is StreamAPI different from using TenM3. The latter is a generic site that allows you to stream LIVE feeds, embed etc. I saw an email that you can monitor your home for $1/Month onwards ( using a panasonic camera & their service ). That is significantly cheaper then Stream ?? Feeds are nice and can be used for Video CCs too, however, I am not sure if the rate is 10 cents or 20 cents per hour ( still cheap )