Live Art Happening Now – Mulheres Barbadas Streams Five Day Draw-a-Thon

Mulheres Barbadas are a very cool artistic duo who have just embarked on a five-day drawing marathon:

They’re a few steps beyond the starting line of five long days of live painting at Sao Paulo’s concept furniture store Micasa, where they’ll leave nothing—walls, tables, chairs, refrigerators, even owner Houssein Jarouche’s Mini Cooper—untouched with black marker.       LINK

This would be completely cool all by itself, but what makes this noteworthy for me is that they are live-streaming the entire event on their website.  This is a great example of artists taking advantage of the internet to spread their work and to create a relationship with existing and potential fans.  Just like musicians, artists need true fans to survive and to thrive and this is a great way to get some.

I’ve embedded the stream below for your enjoyment:

Billboard Drops Paywall, Adds Streaming for a Dime

Billboard.com, still considered the leading trade publication for the popular music industry, is dropping its paywall on its website, making all of their Hot 100 and related chart data available for free.

To be honest, I hadn’t known this info was behind a paywall.  I’ve never really done any deep music chart research.  Still, it strikes me as a wise move since I can’t imagine it is hard to find others listing this data for free elsewhere on the web, legally or not.

The stranger part of the Billboard announcement is how they are hoping to earn money from selling access to actual music.  Billboard, it seems, has a deep library and all the proper agreements in place with the labels so they are a natural source for finding music.  However, their plan is weird:

The site…will offer free music streaming and paid downloads, both powered by digital music site Lala. Users will be able to stream a song once for free, and then pay 10 cents to access it anytime thereafter.       LINK

It’s that last part that seems so weird.  You listen to a song once and then you pay them a dime to be able to come to the site and stream it again anytime you want?  What if you want to listen to the song on your iPod or on your laptop during a WiFi-less flight?  Even at the cost of a dime, it doesn’t seem like you are getting much for your money.

Plus, as we all saw with Amazon going onto people’s Kindles and removing books they’d already paid for, these licenses are absolutely nothing like actually buying the content.

NBC Takes Wimbledon Online for Free

First, NBC did a great job providing complete online coverage of the final round of the US Open on Monday and now comes word that NBC will be streaming their coverage of Wimbledon for free:

On Monday, it said that next month’s women’s and men’s finals at Wimbledon will be streamed live on NBCSports.com. The network brought “Sunday Night Football” to the Web last year, a ground-breaker for the NFL.

In addition to the two finals, NBC said all of its Wimbledon coverage, starting this weekend, will be available on its site, as well as a separate locale under the aegis of the tournament. The network said online viewers will see different camera angles than what’s on TV for the semifinals and finals.     LINK

As I mentioned in my US Open post, I think these sorts of decisions are a clear sign that the networks are not going to sit back and let cable companies dictate how their content can be consumed.  Realizing that they are losing out to piracy entirely due to their failure to provide a valid alternative, NBC is doing the right thing bringing Wimbledon online for free.

We will have to see what their actual coverage looks like, though it sounds that with the exception of the finals, the stream will be the same as the one being broadcast on TV.  We will also have to see what happens with commercial breaks.  During monday’s golf coverage, the online stream did not include the televised ads but instead put up a placard saying, in effect, “be right back.”

It is not clear what sort of advertising will be embedded with the online coverage.  It would be interesting to know if NBC is sharing any of it’s ad revenue generated online with their cable carriers.

Wimbledon is an especially exciting offer for online viewing since, for US viewers, much of the best coverage occurs during normal business hours when access to TV can be impossible.

Everyone Loses in NFL / DirectTV Deal

The NFL and DirectTV announced that they have signed a deal that will give DirectTV subscribers access to NFL games online.

This raises a few issues:

1) If this is an exclusive deal, that would mean that the only way NFL fans could ‘legally’ watch NFL games online is by subscribing to DirectTV, a service that doesn’t seem to work when it is raining.

2) This will only encourage the spread of illegal streams online – something already prevelant but not widespread.

3) If the NFL decides to provide legal streams online in a way that doesn’t require one to sign up for DirectTV, nobody will bother with DirectTV.

I remain baffled as to why CBS’s success with March Madness on Demand cannot be easily replicated by all the major sporting leagues.  More eyeballs means more ad dollars or am I missing something?

More on the deal here.

DailyMotion a Friend to Indies

While YouTube continues to dominate the online video world in terms of total views and posts other sites are looking for ways to distinguish themselves.

One site, the European transport DailyMotion, is trying the indie films route.

According to Mashable:

“Now the video-sharing site is taking things a step further with the inclusion of full length films in its new section, called Cinema Dailymotion, according to 901am. This is an online screening series for viewers to watch streaming, full-length films and documentaries.”

Of course, they’re certainly not the first site to do this it is nice to see them working to focus on the sort of films viewers might not be able to get anywhere else.  Sure, the big blockbusters will always have a the biggest draw but there are also multiple ways to access those films.

This strikes me as another example of finding large niche markets that can be targeted with premium content.  The value of these markets will depend on their size to some degree but the type of content DailyMotion is pushing would seem to attract the sort of richer demos advertisers love.

Does Live Video Matter?

SAI has some numbers on the users and viewers of the many free live-streaming options that have been popping up and sucking up VC rather rapidly.

Turns out the numbers are quite equaling the investment, yet.

“The biggest site, LiveVideo, had 1.13 million unique viewers in February, according to Nielsen’s VideoCensus. That’s enough to earn it 49th on Nielsen’s list of top video sites — and to beat Sony’s Crackle (nee Grouper). But it drops off dramatically from there.

Second-place streamer uStream, supposedly a Microsoft buyout candidate, ranks 142nd among the top video sites. That puts it between iVillage Network (141st) and one above Atom Films (143rd), in terms of unique viewers of video. And Justintv, the supposedly redhot home of iJustine? Just 82,000 unique viewers, Nielsen says — enough to earn it #369.”

This isn’t especially surprising to anyone who has spent time watching the average live-stream.  Like most of the videos on YouTube, it isn’t that interesting.  And, unlike the video’s on YouTube, these “broadcasts” never really end.

Sure, there are some exceptions and it is here that we will begin to see some growth.  The first issue is figuring out what NEEDS to be live.  Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.  Think how few things are actually live on TV.

The news. Morning shows. Sporting events. SNL.  That’s about it aside from the rare stunt programming.  As the tech gets better and the streams get more clear sports will be a big part of the live-streaming world – look how well CBS did with their live NCAA games.  I’ve even heard anecdotal reports of people “broadcasting” sporting events of their own tv, via webcam, to the web for those who can’t get it in their region.

If it Looks Like TV and it Smells Like TV…

PaidContent is reporting that TidalTV has pocketed a nice chunk of venture capital.  Who are they are what do they want to do.  Well:

“TidalTV wants to position itself as a provider of streaming video that’s professionally produced.”

Ya know, the more I think about the more it seems to me that professionally produced streaming video is, well, TV.

That is all.