Live Streaming Launches: BitTorrent Live And ShowGo.tv
Live streaming is seeing steady growth in 2013 after a year of trending news in 2012. Yesterday's announcement at SXSW that BitTorrent Live is now in open Beta is a huge development in the space that's been under development since at least as far back as 2009. In addition, ShowGo.tv launched rather quietly last month at SF MusicTech Summit, but they got TechCrunched so the word is now out. Unfortunately they got Keened as well, but you've got to take the bitter with the sweet.
BitTorrent Live Launches in Open Beta
BitTorrent Live launched yesterday at SXSW in open Beta:
"BitTorrent Live is a peer-to-peer live streaming protocol. It’s based on the principles of the BitTorrent protocol. And it’s designed to make real-time reporting, and open expression accessible to all. BitTorrent Live eliminates bandwidth, cost, and infrastructure as broadcast barriers. The more people that tune in, the more resilient your stream."
BitTorrent Live is yet another excellent use case of the BitTorrent protocol that's long been used by major web companies like Facebook and Wikipedia for code deployment.
BitTorrent's been working on this for quite awhile and you can find out more about why via this 2009 interview with BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen.
ShowGo.tv Launches Jazz-centric Live Streaming from Clubs
Turns out ShowGo.tv launched last month at SF MusicTech.
CEO Brian Gruber says:
"We spent 2012 building our network, signing clubs in four countries (the U.S., UK, Brazil and Italy), and developing technology to allow viewer control via touchscreen and delivery to mobile devices…We are now raising funds for expansion to achieve our ultimate vision: a rich mix of shows from the 100 coolest clubs in the world, 24/7, on any device, at a price affordable to 2 billion connected consumers."
In addition, they state that:
"The company has been working to change the economics of live production for small to medium size music clubs around the world. They have developed a suite of remotely controlled production tools that allow a ShowGo.tv operator to produce a live show from a mobile device as well as deliver to mobile devices such as iPads and iPhones."
Investors include the SF MusicTech Fund. Their shows to date have focused primarily though not exclusive on jazz gigs.
I assume you can find out more via the above video from TechCrunch. I shared it with a jazz musician friend who confirmed that the video interview was the typically uncomfortable Andrew Keen experience so I have not been able to bring myself to watch it.
More:
- EvntLive Raises $2.3 Million From Lady Gaga's Troy Carter, Vint Cerf & More
- Ustream Opens Pay-Per-View To General Public Including "Your Brother's Band"
- Top 5 Live Streaming Music Sources, Moments & Festivals From IROCKE
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) also blogs at All World Dance: Videos and maintains Music Biz Blogs. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
Aw, Andrew Keen is a cuddly, fun guy. I loved the interview and despite his provocative playfulness, we were able to explore the key issues driving successful live concert streaming. Also, good catch: we do lots of world class jazz but we do the rest too: rock, folk, blues, all of it.
Glad you had a good experience with Keen!
I’ll have to check it out to get more of your perspective.
That makes more sense on the genres given the focus on a large number of world class clubs. I did see mostly jazz acts on the site but then I saw some others as well and that’s what clarified things for me.
Thanks for dropping by!
Thanks Clyde. 🙂
It’s actually the SF MusicTech Fund who invested, not the SF MusicTech Summit.
We’re very psyched about ShowGo.TV.
Thanks. I knew it was the fund. Battling allergies and making more mistakes than usual. Probably for another two weeks! Yay!