Streaming Media - August/September 2007 - (Page 67)

the “largest webcast ever” because no one makes their logs available for review, and everyone measures viewers differently. Many large webcasts never even give out numbers or, if they do, the numbers are inflated. I know. I used to give clients viewer numbers after a webcast only to see them make the number a lot higher in press releases, sometimes by a few million. And if—if—it was the largest ever, so what? Does that mean it’s successful? No, not in terms of what really matters: monetization. Sure enough, almost as soon as the event ended, MSN put out a press release talking about the traffic to the Live Earth webcast. But the way the numbers are given out after webcasts, they don’t accurately measure the traffic. The title of the release reads “Live Earth Global Concerts Reach More Than 10 Million Online At MSN ” More than 10 million what? People? Apparently not. Because the details of the release then say, “MSN had received a total of more than 10 million video streams.” So it’s not 10 million people, as viewers are making more than one request or visiting the site multiple times. So how many unique people was it? And why does it say MSN “received” the streams? MSN does not receive the streams, they receive the request for the stream. Errors on such simple facts as this call all the other facts in the release into question. Then the release says the webcast had “the most simultaneous viewers of any online concert ever,” but gives no details on how many simultaneous streams they did. Why do companies find it necessary to be so vague? They’d be doing themselves and the industry a favor if they answered some simple questions directly and clearly: How many total stream requests did you fulfill? How many unique streams For all the hype about the Live 8 webcast in 2005, we still don’t know whether it generated any revenue for concert organizers or the webcasters. did you serve? What was the average length of time someone watched the webcast? What percentage of traffic came from what regions of the world? What was the average bit rate at which people viewed? Very easy questions. Basic. These are the same questions that all customers ask their streamhosting provider after an event, and they get exact figures in response. Why is it so tough for entertainment companies to make these figures public? It’s a shame webcasters have not figured this out by now. I love the webcasting medium. It’s fun to webcast. It brings its own set of challenges, and it is a technology that allows anyone to communicate without any geographical boundaries. But while the application has been successful in the enterprise, government, education, and other verticals, it still does not work for large-scale entertainment events. Dan Rayburn (mail@danrayburn.com) is executive vice president of StreamingMedia. Comments? Email us at letters@streamingmedia.com, or check the masthead for other ways to contact us. WWW.STREAMINGMEDIA.COM The Live Earth webcasts were almost surely a loss leader for MSN, serving to build awareness for the site and other Microsoft brands, such as Zune, which is advertised in the lower right-hand corner. 67 http://WWW.STREAMINGMEDIA.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Streaming Media - August/September 2007

Table of Contents Sweet Sixteen Letters to the Editor Technology and Business Trends IBM Takes Webcasting to the Desktop ROI in the EDU Bank Serves Espresso, Enterprise Video Online Video Advertising: Hit or Miss MLB’s Foul Bawl A Crash Course in Flash Video Newspapers in Multimedia Metamorphosis Webcasting Large Entertainment Events: Seeing Through the Hype Webcasting With Windows Media Can’t Start A Fire . . . A WiMAX Primer Mobile Video at Last Telestream Episode Pro Grass Valley ProCoder 3 Silverlight Is No Flash Killer

Streaming Media - August/September 2007

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