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Live television is nearly non-existent online. I wish I could post the graph of unique visitors that the founders of Justin.TV sent me. But while their actual

by pg 18y ago

Live television is nearly non-existent online. I wish I could post the graph of unique visitors that the founders of Justin.TV sent me. But while their actual numbers are presumably secret, I will say that I have never seen a steeper graph of a one-year period from any YC-funded startup. And I have seen some steep graphs now.

apsec112 18y ago
For the poor man's version, just check Alexa: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/justin.tv http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/justin.tv
- pg 18y ago
  The actual growth is steeper. I think few of their users have the Alexa toolbar installed.
old-gregg 18y ago
... which supports a few other argumets Matt's making, because justin.tv is probably the most famous YC startup among my non-programming friends: we all watch live college football and european soccer games on it, re-translated by users with TV tuners. I don't think this is something justin.tv is happy about because it kind of transforms "broadcast yourself" into "share your cable subscription with strangers" and inevitably leads to a conflict with Fox+ESPN+friends [and possibly with cable/sat. providers too] It all comes down to bandwidth. It doesn't exist and the situation is not improving, I'm 100% with Matt here. Even ESPN's premiere 360 offering pretty much sucks, let alone Justin's streams: they're basically backups for people who don't have TV access (on the road, in another country, etc). Security-minded, TCP-dominant, firewalled to death "Big Internet" is simply the wrong platform to stream live HD video. Having worked at an IP-based HD video surveillance startup I was amazed at how hard it was to reliably push high-def streams over TCP/IP even within a large local enterprise network. Most of our IP was all about bandwidth management. I honestly can't even imagine what would it take to stream even CNN to all their viewers, let alone superbowl.
- madh 18y ago
  Does this mean that typical cable (e.g. comcast) or fiber (e.g. FiOS) networks have more bandwidth than the internet? Or is this just a multicast vs unicast thing?
  - wmf 18y ago
    Both; cable networks have about 5Gbps AFAIK and it is broadcast to all customers.
- DomesticMouse 18y ago
  Broadcast has bandwidth. Computers have brains. Why are these two competing? Broadcasting a signal that means something to computers, and having computers then marshal that for users is way more profitable. Easy place to start - start hiring a small TV station for an hour in the morning, somewhere in amongst the informercials, and broadcast a signal that people with TV Tuners can decode. Using some variation of colour 3D barcodes, say. Have the TV Tuner decode software use this hour to pump content into squid or some other form of web cache. Monetisation strategy: give people the ability to vote on what gets broadcast based on their cache logs.
  - tjmc 18y ago
    Bittorrent does the same thing more easily, but neither works for live broadcasts. The technical solution to the HD bandwidth issue is probably ISP level multicast, but they'd still only be able to deliver the most popular content, making them effectively "a la carte" cable companies. Perhaps a frame based variation on the bittorrent protocol is the way to go, where you're constantly torrenting sequential blocks of content and viewing with a slight delay. I think people would find that acceptable for live events that aren't popular in their current location, but broadcast is still superior for mass appeal content.
  - sketerpot 18y ago
    Sounds like a lot of work compared to using Hulu or BitTorrent. The Internet bandwidth costs more, sure, but it's convenient. Lazy wins.
whughes 18y ago
While I admire what justin.tv is doing, I think that in a way it's arrogant of the "Web 2.0"/Silicon Valley community to dismiss TV so quickly. Silicon Valley and the kinds of people who are adopting justin.tv are not the people who are watching TV in droves right now. I seriously doubt justin.tv commands the viewership in the tens or hundreds of millions that normal television does at its peak.
- pg 18y ago
  The people watching Justin.TV are not sophisticated Silicon Valley early adopters, believe me. And while nothing streamed online has the numbers of TV yet, I believe Justin.TV's numbers are as big as anything else online.
  - tommyx 18y ago
    It's doing exactly what Stage6 did. Stage6 had amazing growth. The problem was that it was entirely fueled by the fact that they were hosting high quality pirated content. It's like standing on a street corner and handing out DVD rips of the latest movies for free. Of course you're going to be popular. Anyone with the balls and money to blow could do it, but why would they? It's a total gamble that you're going to sell the company before you get sued out of business.
Mazy 18y ago
Justin.TV is quantified: http://www.quantcast.com/justin.tv http://www.quantcast.com/justin.tv including embedded players: http://www.quantcast.com/p-16uNVwiyGoWyg http://www.quantcast.com/p-16uNVwiyGoWyg Also, some real-time data: http://live.justin.tv/ http://live.justin.tv/
- aswanson 18y ago
  Those numbers have M after them. As in million. I never thought this would have ever worked. 100 percent convinced JTv was on a course with obscurity. Tell the honest to god truth -- weren't you?
  - Mazy 18y ago
    It is very cool that so many people are using the site, the problem though seems to be that the majority of the traffic is for illegal content. They have shown cases of big legitimate use, like the Jonas Brothers web chats, and the Keke Palmer web chat, however day-to-day it seems to be for sports, TV shows, and movies.
mattmaroon 18y ago
There's still a tremendous gulf between Justin.tv and a live telecast of a sports game or award show. Not that what they've accomplished isn't impressive, but it isn't what most people would refer to as live tv.

by pg 18y ago

apsec112 18y ago

For the poor man's version, just check Alexa: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/justin.tv http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/justin.tv

pg 18y ago
The actual growth is steeper. I think few of their users have the Alexa toolbar installed.

old-gregg 18y ago

... which supports a few other argumets Matt's making, because justin.tv is probably the most famous YC startup among my non-programming friends: we all watch live college football and european soccer games on it, re-translated by users with TV tuners. I don't think this is something justin.tv is happy about because it kind of transforms "broadcast yourself" into "share your cable subscription with strangers" and inevitably leads to a conflict with Fox+ESPN+friends [and possibly with cable/sat. providers too] It all comes down to bandwidth. It doesn't exist and the situation is not improving, I'm 100% with Matt here. Even ESPN's premiere 360 offering pretty much sucks, let alone Justin's streams: they're basically backups for people who don't have TV access (on the road, in another country, etc). Security-minded, TCP-dominant, firewalled to death "Big Internet" is simply the wrong platform to stream live HD video. Having worked at an IP-based HD video surveillance startup I was amazed at how hard it was to reliably push high-def streams over TCP/IP even within a large local enterprise network. Most of our IP was all about bandwidth management. I honestly can't even imagine what would it take to stream even CNN to all their viewers, let alone superbowl.

madh 18y ago
Does this mean that typical cable (e.g. comcast) or fiber (e.g. FiOS) networks have more bandwidth than the internet? Or is this just a multicast vs unicast thing?
- wmf 18y ago
  Both; cable networks have about 5Gbps AFAIK and it is broadcast to all customers.
DomesticMouse 18y ago
Broadcast has bandwidth. Computers have brains. Why are these two competing? Broadcasting a signal that means something to computers, and having computers then marshal that for users is way more profitable. Easy place to start - start hiring a small TV station for an hour in the morning, somewhere in amongst the informercials, and broadcast a signal that people with TV Tuners can decode. Using some variation of colour 3D barcodes, say. Have the TV Tuner decode software use this hour to pump content into squid or some other form of web cache. Monetisation strategy: give people the ability to vote on what gets broadcast based on their cache logs.
- tjmc 18y ago
  Bittorrent does the same thing more easily, but neither works for live broadcasts. The technical solution to the HD bandwidth issue is probably ISP level multicast, but they'd still only be able to deliver the most popular content, making them effectively "a la carte" cable companies. Perhaps a frame based variation on the bittorrent protocol is the way to go, where you're constantly torrenting sequential blocks of content and viewing with a slight delay. I think people would find that acceptable for live events that aren't popular in their current location, but broadcast is still superior for mass appeal content.
- sketerpot 18y ago
  Sounds like a lot of work compared to using Hulu or BitTorrent. The Internet bandwidth costs more, sure, but it's convenient. Lazy wins.

whughes 18y ago

While I admire what justin.tv is doing, I think that in a way it's arrogant of the "Web 2.0"/Silicon Valley community to dismiss TV so quickly. Silicon Valley and the kinds of people who are adopting justin.tv are not the people who are watching TV in droves right now. I seriously doubt justin.tv commands the viewership in the tens or hundreds of millions that normal television does at its peak.

pg 18y ago
The people watching Justin.TV are not sophisticated Silicon Valley early adopters, believe me. And while nothing streamed online has the numbers of TV yet, I believe Justin.TV's numbers are as big as anything else online.
- tommyx 18y ago
  It's doing exactly what Stage6 did. Stage6 had amazing growth. The problem was that it was entirely fueled by the fact that they were hosting high quality pirated content. It's like standing on a street corner and handing out DVD rips of the latest movies for free. Of course you're going to be popular. Anyone with the balls and money to blow could do it, but why would they? It's a total gamble that you're going to sell the company before you get sued out of business.

Mazy 18y ago

Justin.TV is quantified: http://www.quantcast.com/justin.tv http://www.quantcast.com/justin.tv including embedded players: http://www.quantcast.com/p-16uNVwiyGoWyg http://www.quantcast.com/p-16uNVwiyGoWyg Also, some real-time data: http://live.justin.tv/ http://live.justin.tv/

aswanson 18y ago
Those numbers have M after them. As in million. I never thought this would have ever worked. 100 percent convinced JTv was on a course with obscurity. Tell the honest to god truth -- weren't you?
- Mazy 18y ago
  It is very cool that so many people are using the site, the problem though seems to be that the majority of the traffic is for illegal content. They have shown cases of big legitimate use, like the Jonas Brothers web chats, and the Keke Palmer web chat, however day-to-day it seems to be for sports, TV shows, and movies.

mattmaroon 18y ago

There's still a tremendous gulf between Justin.tv and a live telecast of a sports game or award show. Not that what they've accomplished isn't impressive, but it isn't what most people would refer to as live tv.