YouTube launched its first ever live concert event last week with roughly 700,000 concurrent viewers tuning in to watch according to stats from Akamai. See TechCrunch’s post about Akamai’s usage stats here. The event featured a blend of real Hollywood celebrities like Katy Perry and Will.i.am and cewebrities like Tay “Chocolate Rain” Zonday, LisaNova and Chad Vader.
The event itself had mixed reviews with many weighing in after the event:
CNN Feed: Was YouTube Live a Success? That Depends
Nielsen BuzzMetrics: BlogPulse
Mashable: Youtube Live! (But Dead on Arrival)
Whether you agree that the event was entertaining or not, this is a good sign for other live video streaming start-ups like Mogulus, Ustream, Joost, Justin.tv and the ever popular Hulu. **Update: Sling Media launches its own video streaming site, Sling.com.
Max Haot, CEO of Mogulus had this to say about the event on the Mogulus blog:
“This is an outstanding result for YouTube’s first live streaming event, and a clear confirmation of the potential of live streaming for YouTube and the internet as a whole.
This is great news for Mogulus and the entire live streaming community.”
Online video has been showing great promise and projections point to a growing online video audience. eMarketer reports that US online viewership will increase to 190 million viewers, representing 88% of internet users.
User consumption trends and advertising potential of online video in Part 2. (Coming)
