Sara Bremen | work and research

I was unfamiliar with much of what live video streaming is on the web, but when I started combing through, some of my worse fears were confirmed. There is just such crap.

Day Trading Radio was one of the more popular streams.  From what I could tell it showed stock market quotes while playing hard rock music.  It’s actually a great combination of information and entertainment and would probably work really well as something going on in the background.

On JustinTV, I thought it was interesting what they found to be the greatest viewing populations.  A whole new section was being developed for gamers I assume because there were so many streams dedicated to games and gaming already.

Most of the streams, especially on the “popular” lists, where of pretty young girls, sitting in front of their computers and reading the chat room that was attached to their stream.  The first woman above would ramble on about her day until she saw a chat that caught her attention and then talk about the first who had written it.  At one point, she read a sexually offensive comment and declared what the rules of her stream were.  It was difficult, she said she didn’t want RULES, but she needed some kind of rules.  She sarcastically mentioned how this guy probably wants to she her “luscious lips wrapped around his big, hard…Chocolate!  I had the best chocolate today!”  It was almost actually funny.
The woman on the right would just read the chats as they came in, which were mostly questions, and answer them.  She loves the olympics and one of the contestants on Dancing With the Stars.  It was interesting how many people were in the chat room.  It was like a weird, alternate universe where the popular girl really does get her own tv show where people just watch and worship her.

This was one of the more interesting streams, I thought.  It was from a camera aimed outside in what looks like someone’s front yard, somewhere in Texas.  It wasn’t exactly a security cam, though there were some screen shots of random people walking through, it seemed to be just observing.  Like a very short throw telescope set out simply to see what it would see.
It was similar to the White House live stream I came across, though that wasn’t showing anything.

This stream, though unfortunately I somehow missed it in the screen shot I took, had multiple cameras and switched between three or four guys in different places.  It reminded me of Howard Stern.  They had inside jokes with their relatively large following and it seemed like they would interview guests, too.

These were two interesting ads I noticed.  The first simply says “Internet Killed Television.”  It’s the next iteration of “Video Killed the Radio Star.”  YouTube, pictured on the right, was advertising their “Music Tuesdays” and featured three videos from up and coming musicians.  It was a simple and effective way not only to organize their videos, but also to begin to curate the vast amount of content they have.  It doesn’t deter from all the user generated content, it just adds an additional layer.

One of the most viewed videos (at least a few nights ago) was an almost twenty minute long video that recorded part of a couple’s vacation, led into the boyfriend proposing, and included footage of the couple telling their family and friends about their engagement.  What was interesting, I thought, was the combination of live and rehearsed content.  That is, the boyfriend told us, the audience, in the beginning of the video his intentions to propose to his girlfriend.  We were on the inside with him–it was rehearsed to us but live to the girlfriend and waiting and watching for her reaction was full of suspense and intrigue.  I found myself scrubbing through, though, to find the proposal itself.  Because the video is so personal and intended, ultimately, for a small audience, there was no need for an editor.  If the video were to be turned into an actual reality tv show, it would have been cut at least in half.
I also watched a few webisodes that friends of mine had produced.  These were rehearsed, acted, and edited videos–a story was written and performed by actors–but their choices were all to simulate the kind of candid and often rambling style of live videos.  You can tell that it’s scripted, but the intention is to seem live.  It’s an interesting task for the actors; I’m not sure if it’s actually interesting yet, but the use of the media, of the live style, and of the webisode is exciting.