The rise of live streaming entertainment

The traditional ropes of entertainment continue to be abandoned in favour of online services like Netflix and Amazon. However, one feature which appears to be moving away from the consumer at your leisure and binge watch culture is live streaming.

For some time now, video has been the preferred form of content on social media and has cleaned up when it comes to the consumption habits of most social media users. However, it’s not only prerecorded content – users now have the ability to stream an event live on the networking sites. Followers can choose to watch concerts, sporting events, political campaigns and speeches that are considered too small or not commercially viable for traditional media outlets.

Facebook also announced this week that it is set to roll out a new streaming service to rival Amazon and Netflix. The movies and TV shows will be funded by adverts aimed specifically at the user. They will use the large amounts of data which the tech giant has harnessed about its consumers to fund the service which will, at least for now, be free of charge.

It is clear that the drive behind this increase in steaming is the significant amount of money which can be made. YouTube has led the way in the streaming industry and last year generated more than $9 billion in revenues. With this type of money to be made it’s likely that we’ll see these functionalities being rolled out across multiple platforms over the coming years.

The benefit is clear – live streaming can broadcast directly to a specific audience without the need for a large commercial backing. The World Pokémon Championships were recently broadcast on the internet despite the fact that the actual event was by invitation only and would have been ignored by mainstream outlets.

Being the undisputed of video and streaming it should come as no surprise that YouTube one is of the leaders in both live streaming and live gaming. It connects millions from around the world, using the site as a conduit for meeting and playing together. One of the main rivals to YouTube is Twitch. This live streaming service, which launched in 2011, now attracts over 100 million gamers from around the world every month – a staggering accomplishment for something often considered a niche industry.

But it seems that fans are not satisfied with the current level of connectivity such as in-depth performance statistics. It was recently reported that gamers are now using newly developed technologies to broadcast their vital statistics in a bid to make the game more compelling. The tech enables fans of online gaming to see things such as blood pressure and heart rate of those competing against each other in these virtual environments.

Microsoft just launched a new application called Mixer Create. It will let gamers live stream whatever game they are playing to the world at the click of a button. The feature will work for all games on Android but has, at least for now, more limited capabilities on IOS. The innovative mobile technology will also let up to four different games combine their streams into a single screen in a bid to foster a wider community experience.

 

The editorial unit