YouNow.com Mixes Live Web Performance With Instant Death

YouNow.com presented last week at TechCrunch Disrupt and received a warm welcome though I have to wonder if the deluge of startup conferences that week undermined the amount of publicity they received. This startup features live streaming video performances by musicians who get voted on each minute of their performance leading to instant death or more time and more chances at instant death.

Watching Music On YouNow Is Addictive:

Though YouNow.com actually went live in July, last week was their formal unvileing. The TechCrunch review includes a video of their presentation.

I'm on the homepage where all the excitement happens but, at 1:47 am EST on a Tuesday morning, there appear to be more people queued up to perform (5) than are voting (3). The basic dynamic is that you get a minute and, if you get more thumbs up than down, you get more time. Otherwise they move on to the next act. They also move on if nobody votes.

To get started artists configure their camera, choose a channel and title (music is the main thing but "Confessions & Opinions" is another option with "Comedy" coming soon) and get in line to perform. Viewers can login via Facebook to earn points that allow them to vote. Artists earn both points and rankings, based on voting, and their points allow them to jump ahead in the queue.

So far everything I click on related to individual profiles and information appears in a popup window so it makes browsing anyone who's not visibly active impossible. However, unlike so many streaming video sites, they archive performances and have an option to browse previous performances that's "coming soon."  Archiving performances definitely takes resources but I think it's a very smart move and allows for the site to have a much broader reach.

YouNow.com has the potential to be a popular site and may even become a decent platform for artist self-promotion. According to their help FAQ, they intend to start showing videos on other platforms and helping promote artists. You can already link to individual archived performances and embed them on other sites. However, it appears you can't remove performances and that seems to have already upset one performer who's added "Please Remove" to the title of each of his videos.

I would guess that some of these details will shift very soon. I also think that if you tend to get a positive reception from strangers or can organize friends for voting, now would be a good time to get on, start accumulating some points and be ready to push your way to the front of the line when things get busy!

Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. He blogs about web business models at Flux Research and the world of dance at All World Dance. To suggest music services and related topics for review at Hypebot, please contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.