Initial reports said that hundreds of thousands of people watched YouTube’s Live U2 concert on Sunday night. Then reports yesterday raised the estimate to 2.5 million. Double that, and then double it again. 10 million is the real number of live streams that YouTube did that night, according to Variety.
That’s massive, and it’s obviously the biggest live streaming event YouTube has ever done. But even more impressive is just how smoothly it went. I watched about half of the two and a half hour show, and if there were any interruptions, I didn’t see any. I didn’t even see any hiccups, it was that good. I had the show running full screen on my desktop computer, and it was pretty great picture quality for live streaming video.
Though YouTube hasn’t officially commented on it, it’s widely believed that Akamai [update below], and not Google, were the ones actually handling the streaming capabilities. They’re the group that also handled it for YouTube Live, this past summer. That event saw some 700,000 concurrent views during its peak, undoubtedly, this had way more.
Of course, even 10 million is nothing compared to some of the most popular television shows, but we’re starting to see audience of comprable sizes (though on a worldwide level whereas TV ratings are generally cited for the U.S.).
The recorded version of the full 2 and a half hour concert is now officially being served up by YouTube and it already has over a million views in 3 days.
Update: As Stephen Donner points out in the comments, he was able to trace the stream as it was happening, sure enough, back to Akamai.
wait how is that possible? The channel only has 8.5 million views…
The channel had a lot more than 8.5m views at one stage but then it appeared to be reset. I’m not sure why but I was watching the page when there was millions more than 8.5 and then when I refreshed it had dropped. Not sure why they did that though.
Ok, not digging the title quite so much this time…
Agree. U2 has a library and a fan base large enough to write a better headline than going for the easy hit.
I might be slow, but I still don’t get it.
It’s more than just “widely believed”:
http://twitter....atus/5166213580
“The U2 concert is streamed via Akamai, not Google: tracert u2.youtube.com.edgesuite.net Tracing route to a1448.g.akamai.net [208.49.52.51]“
good stuff. will add that in.
nice find!
welcome to a new age of rock concerts… virtual woodstock, delivered right into your lap; nee laptop!
arvind
Yup, everything in your lap, music, girls, news, everything.
If you believe that attending Woodstock and watching YouTube are the same, or even remotely same, experience, you really have missed something:
Life.
I wanna konw how many people were participated in ‘Twitter chat’ during the u2uge show.
Where can I get those numbers?
Awesome news
))
MG, you have bent that headline in a cruel and unusual way. I feel sorry for the poor thing.
How about:
“10 million U2 fans found what they were looking for on YouTube”
or
“YouTube rattled and hummed to 10 million U2 fans”
(Ok they’re pretty bad too…)
Watching a U2 concert on YouTube is NOT even better than the real thing.
Youtube Shows its Pride – U2 in the Name of Love
Great show – terrible headline.
Yeah the headline is mangled….
Hyphens preferred: With – Not Without – U2, YouTube Saw….
Off with your headline! Try…
U2ube to 10mil
But, but, but… Microsoft told us that this kind of livestreaming is only possible with Microsoft(r) Silverlight(tm) technology
good old flash… and it’s only going to get Harder Better Stronger Faster. (with 10.1 next spring)
Yet their sales jump was minimal this week on Soundscan. Another losing biz model for YouTube as I can’t imagine the bill from Akamai.
The headline is based on their wong: with or without you!! how lame…:)
I watched that live was great too see it run so smooth
trying this again
How much time before Youtube kills ustream/justin.tv by letting their users live stream?
This is probably using the impressive (and expensive, I understand) Akamai EdgeSuite product.
nope, it wasn’t akamai http => it was good old flash media server and flash player.
Just remember that…
http://blogmave...will-never-die/
4 years is a long time to get this far eh?
I’m surprised you guys didn’t notice it when the stream was on.
Akamai did it for them – http://twitter....atus/5166256992
and the show ROCKED!!!
Wow, google bought akamai too? I am late on things
What is even more interesting is the fact that the player was developed by a company name Adveno.
We had some hickups with the streaming about 15 minutes into the show, when YouTube displayed a “please wait while we resolve some technical difficulties” type of message, but it went smoothly after that.