Ustream to Offer Live, Interactive Coverage of "Avatar" Premiere, Golden Globe Nominations

Live Internet broadcast service provider, Ustream (note: the company recently announced the availability of a Ustream Live Broadcaster iPhone app in the iTunes App Store--see the article published on itvt.com, December 10th), contacted [itvt] Monday to let us know that it will be powering live, interactive feeds of today's (Tuesday) Golden Globes nominations and tomorrow's (Wednesday) premiere of the new James Cameron movie, "Avatar."

According to the company, its live interactive stream of the "Avatar" red carpet is the result of a partnership with Twentieth Century Fox and MySpace, and will be available from 6:00PM Pacific at http://ustream.tv/avatar. It will include live cast and celebrity interviews, and will allow viewers to interact with one another through Ustream chat or through Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and AIM (through Ustream's Social Stream service).

The company's live Webcast of the Golden Globe nominations ceremony, meanwhile, will be the first ever of that event, and will also feature interactive/social viewing. It will be available from 5:00AM Pacific at: http://www.ustream.tv/goldenglobes. A list of various other interactive live streaming events that Ustream is powering this week is available here. Ashton Kutcher's production company, Katalyst Films, announced that it will air a live streaming, interactive version of its show, "Katalyst HQ," on Ustream at 8:00PM Eastern on Wednesday. More information is available here.)

Facebook Launches A Live Stream Box, Partners With Ustream

Today, Facebook is launching a new “Live Stream Box” feature which allows for Facebook Pages to offer their own live video and chat area. And Ustream will be the first to take advantage of it with Ustream on Facebook, a new service to provide live video support to select Facebook users.

This functionality is an extension of what Ustream and Facebook did with some Jonas Brothers concerts last month — events which drew huge numbers. How huge? This huge, according to Ustream:

■1.5 million unique posts were made via Facebook Live Feed
■23K average posts per minute
■More than 100K users joined the webcast after seeing their friend’s comment on Facebook
■974K total unique viewers watched the one hour webcast
■Ustream reports the Jonas Brothers webcast on Facebook surpassed the largest live video event they have hosted for any music artist
So clearly, there’s a big demand for certain live events via Facebook, and Ustream is jumping on it, as Facebook’s preferred partner.

Apparently, how this will work is that on Facebook Pages there will now be a way to add a “Live” tab, which will house things such as the Ustream on Facebook feature. Previously, beyond the Jonas Brothers, Facebook has tested this with CNN and the NBA All-Star game. Here’s what Facebook has to say:

Today, Facebook is launching the Facebook Live Stream Box as a feature that any website owner or developer can use to enable Facebook users to connect, share, and post updates in real-time as they witness an event online. Websites can run the Live Stream Box next to live streaming videos of concerts, speeches, sporting events, webcasts, TV shows, presentations, or webinars. Sites can also run the Live Stream Box in multi-player games, or with any other experience where many people are visiting a website at the same time.

But Ustream’s funtionality is not for everyone yet, due to what will undoubtedly be high demand, we’re told. Any artist or person who thinks they could benefit from the Ustream functionality, can apply to have the feature turned on here. With it, you’ll get not only the live player, but a customizable banner that can link to places like iTunes or Amazon (obviously important for artists).

Right now, there are two versions of the player: A free ad-supported version, and a white-label version. The free version is the one with limited sign-ups allowed right now, so click that link above quickly if you think you need the feature. The white-label version comes with a one-time development fee of $15,000. But you also get an ongoing subscription to Ustream’s white-label platform, Watershed.

Find out more information here. Eventually, Ustream hopes to port this Facebook experience over to its main site as well using Facebook Connect, we’re told.

Live Wire

Yet another video service bites the dust as Y! Live is pulled by Yahoo; meanwhile YouTube has announced that it is going to start experimenting with live streamed events on its service this month.

But the leaders in terms of live streaming services remain Ustream and Mogulus.

In many sectors, live is a powerful driver of audience but only as long as the audience know where and when to look. The key to the use of live events within Internet TV seems to be consistent - same time, same place every day or every week.

I've seen many channels struggle with live events because they're done ad hoc and every time an audience needs to be built from scratch.

There is one technology which I've yet to see implemented and that's relaying - where one PC takes a live feed and sends it to another PC, which then sends it on further down the line. I suspect it's a technology we'll see very soon that enables streams to be broadcast around georestricted rules.