Friday, March 27, 2015

The Next Social Media Frontier: Live Streaming

First was facebook, then youtube and twitter, then Instagram and snapchat and now meerkat and periscope. It went from text, to pictures, to video, to disappearing pictures, and now we have live disappearing video.

Companies had to figure out how to successfully adopt and integrate each new channel into their strategy. Some companies have embraced digital marketing extremely well (Old Spice) while other have crashed and burned (Comcast). I am sure that this will be no different with some companies developing really clever and useful ways to integrate this, like broadcasting product reveals to the most loyal followers for example, while Comcast will broadcast its workers sleeping on the job.

I also have no doubt that this will be successful since reality television is already successful (I blame MTV) and there are youTube celebrities (I still blame MTV). So to think people would want to watch other people live their lives in realtime instead of living their own doesn't surprise me, after all there are millions of people that watch other people enjoy regular meals by themselves.

People have different perspectives, different interests, and who am I to judge but the scenario the author describes where people tuned in to watch him pick a lunch place... really? No offense to any of my friends, but I don't think I am ever that bored or have that much free time to tune in and watch one  of my friends picking a lunch place.

It is also interesting that 150 years ago the only way we could watch something is to be there in person and witness it ourselves. Video allowed us to be able to enjoy the content any time, any where. And now we are going back to witnessing it our selves in real time... granted we don't have to physically be there.

As I mentioned, it is not hard to envision this being successful, after all people have been tuning into live webcam shows since the 90's. I can't help but wonder, however, how lonely we feel in this ever increasingly connected world that we choose to watch someone else do mundane tasks just so feel part of someone else's life.

http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/26/celebrity-app-deathmatch-meerkat-vs-periscope/

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