Live video startup Ustream has launched the mobile version of Watershed, its broadcasting platform for enterprises. Watershed Mobile will let organizations stream video onto a variety of mobile devices, including the Nokia N95 phones.
Launched in February, Watershed allows organizations to broadcast live video in minutes with their own private-label branding. Watershed Mobile will let organizations disseminate high quality video to a mobile phones via a fast streaming service. The service also includes integrated chat, GPS, and audience polling. The polling feature lets organizations ask their audience what they want to see or what actions they should take in a live broadcast situation.
Ustream has also signed on a few big-name businesses and universities to its Watershed streaming products, including Oracle, Duke, Sun Microsystems, UC Berkeley, and Sling. Watershed is helping create large-scale webcasts for these clients, with Oracle is considering using Watershed to broadcast from their annual worldwide events. Sun Microsystems is using Watershed for official earning calls and other internal webcasts.
The ability for businesses to stream live video onto mobile devices could be very useful, especially when Ustream integrates a variety of mobile devices into the platform. But as we’ve stated earlier, the price for Watershed’s streaming service (mobile use is now integrated into these pricing options), a SaaS cloud computing service with pricing in a pay-as-you-go basis, isn’t cheap. Pricing starts at $1 per viewer hour for 1,000 viewer hours per month or less and scales down to $0.25 per viewer hour for streams that a reach 50,000 viewer hours per month or more. (A viewer hour is one viewer watching a stream for one hour, or 60 viewers watching for one minute, etc.). Ustream has also introduced monthly plans where businesses can pay a flat fee for viewer hours. For example, for 11,000 hours of viewing in a month, companies will pay $879 per month. Through either of these pricing models, mass streaming to thousands of people could be expensive. While a few thousand dollars is a drop in the bucket for big companies like Oracle and Sun Microsystems, smaller businesses may not be able to afford streaming video to a mass-scale, especially in thus economy. Mogulus also offer online video streaming for businesses, but hasn’t gone to the mobile space yet. Ustream has been making a big push into the mobile space and recently rolled out its mobile video broadcasting apps.
It is awesome to see all of these services getting exposure in the enterprise. There is going to be a paradigm shift over the next few years as the younger generation moves into leadership positions in bigger companies. It is going to be interesting to see how social media starts to shape the corporate world. Thanks for posting this, it is definitely cool to see it happening. Will be cool once the support for devices grows (i.e. berry, iphone, etc).
Younger generations have always led the way with technology. Twitter is a great example. “Most” people over 50 probably could care less about Twitter. But high school kids are loving it. These kids will probably still love it when they are 50. Its a societal shift that takes time.
Mobile is just another example… Glad to see Ustream embracing it.
Mobile via SaaS is great. Lowers the barrier to try it.
I will test for myself.
Yup I agree, and now corporations are starting to use twitter internally. Maybe twitter should package up the service and sell it to corporations to run internally.
they definitely should. I could see alot of companies using it.
Mobile is definitely the future. I lost my iphone over the weekend and I felt lost.
Good to also see Web 2.0 companies not solely rely on ad revenue.
Glad to see monthly plans. I wanted to try it, but it was out of our church’s price range.
I’ll probably use it for this weekend’s service as we have a popular guest speaker.
Alan
Webcasting made simple now with mobile.
Great!
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
I remember the rain on the roof that morning
And all the things that I wanted to say
The angry words that came from nowhere without warning
That stole the moment and sent me away
And you standing there at the doorway crying
And me wondering if I’d ever be back
muz.mp3-book.net
MESSAGE