If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. You can even subscribe by email! Thanks for visiting!
My earlier mini-rant about live blogging from events is now being challenged by the rise of live streaming video.
My good friend Shel Holtz points to the rise and rise of sites like Stickam and UStream who let anybody with a camera and an internet connection broadcast live video.
Whilst I actually welcome the idea of live video (in that it is more ‘truthful’ and less disruptive than some wannabe hack noisily bashing away at a laptop), I wonder how naive some folks are.
After all, let’s say Company XYZ puts on a conference and charges, say, $500 per candidate for the privilege of attending and getting ’skilled up’ in the latest technologies and tactics for, ahhh… ‘improved employee communication’.
How bountifully joyous are they going to be, do you think, with the prospect that their knowledge, for which they are charging a premium and upon the successful selling of which keeps mouths fed and mortgages paid, can be delivered to the whole world (and their target market) for free?
Powered by Zoundry
{ 1 trackback }
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Bryan Person, Bryper.com 04.22.07 at 10:00 pm
Methinks it means that said Company XYZ will either have to hope the candidates just aren’t paying attention to this new live-video phenomeon, or Company XYZ will have to start charging $500 for something else.
Sallie Goetsch (rhymes with "sketch") 04.23.07 at 12:55 am
Is live video really a substitute for being there? Look at the long tradition of televised sports games in the US. Plenty of people still fork over good money to go to the game in person, and people who would never have been able to attend live can still watch.
Most of the people who will watch the videos or listen to the audio recordings “instead of” attending never would have paid the $500 (or even $50). They’re either too far away, don’t have the money, or don’t value the event that highly.
Everyone knows the difference between watching something on TV and being there. The recordings may have some advantage in terms of cost and convenience, but they’re always second best. You still can’t ask the presenter your own questions or network with the other attendees.
For that matter, I just attended a virtual expo, and while it works pretty well, you can’t exchange business cards, which makes getting people’s contact info a nuisance. And that’s for people who *did* pay to get in.
Bryan Person, Bryper.com 04.23.07 at 9:28 am
Yikes, Hopkins. I was reading too quickly — you know, another case of continuous-partial-attention syndrome striking — and clearly missed exactly what you said Company XYZ would be charging for. Sallie, I need an appointment at the Asylum right away!
Before digging myself into a bigger hole here, let me just say I agree wholeheartedly with Professor Goetsch … in no way does watching the video stream of a conference through somebody’s webcam compare with the actual experience of attending the conference. I think Company XYZ can still breathe easy — for now.
Lee Hopkins 04.24.07 at 9:49 am
Somehow I can’t see Melcrum, Ragan, et al, being overjoyed at someone filming their seminars and training sessions — the implications for IP and copyright are frightening.
Sallie Goetsch (rhymes with "sketch") 04.24.07 at 11:19 am
Copyright is still an issue–but it was an issue when it was a matter of needing permission to post notes, handouts, etc after an event was over (I’m thinking of the business networking group I’m on the board of; some speakers give us their materials to post on the site, and some don’t.)
But while I’m here–is a person who is live blogging actually more *disruptive* than a compulsive note-taker like me, who sits there whacking away near-verbatim notes throughout the whole presentation? Not that I ever share them even privately, never mind post them, without editig them, as they tend to contain too many of the off-the-cuff remarks I’m restraining myself from making to my companions.
Lee Hopkins 04.24.07 at 11:53 am
I think the issue with live blogging, Sallie, (at least for me) is the noise factor. Scribbling into a moleskin is a lot quieter than bashing at a keyboard — if someone was regular in their keybashing maybe you would accommodate to the regular tap-tap-tap, but as most people hunt and peck, or touch type but do so in fits and spurts as their brain dictates to them, then the irregularity of it would be annoying.