Online Media Cultist

The “lifestreaming” phenomenon streams onward and upward, or at least a few companies in the venture capital space hope so.

Ustream.tv is announcing that it is raising $11.1 million, which is on the heels of Qik’s $3 million round.

In late March I noted this about Ustream: It’s a potent and timely mix, video and social networking and a real-time communications experience. I’m curious to see where this will go.

In my view, Ustream is a lot stronger and healthier platform as compared to Qik, which centers around live video streaming from mobile phones. I think this space will be huge in a few years (and perhaps less, who knows?) but the quality of the video I’ve watched on Qik has been bad enough to make me shut it off. Whereas with Ustream it’s a lot easier to “get”: (watchable) live video broadcasting with a suite of easy-to-use social networking and chat features built around it. Great place to go if you want to set up your own video chat show. Host impromptu live meetings by making an announcement on Twitter or another real time communications application where you can reach a lot of people immediately. Get it, makes lots of sense.

I haven’t played with Qik a lot so don’t want to be totally unfair to it, but I sense that it has a ways to go before it can attract a huge audience. And perhaps it’s unfair to compare Ustream and Qik directly as they are not exactly the same. If Qik can improve video streaming quality (no easy task!) it could be a killer app. And for all I know it just might be anyway: people love using their mobile phones to do so, and if you can stream live video and create an audience around that, that will certainly catch on.

Other lifestreaming-type services include Kyte.tv and Justin.tv. I haven’t head a lot about Justin.tv of late, but it seems to be quietly streaking up the Alexa rankings at the least, clocking in under the 1000 mark yesterday.

So that might help us to understand why there’s a spurt of funding going on round the lifestreaming junction at the moment.

The more I use Twitter, the more interesting I think it is. It does take a little bit of thinking and planning to use it in an optimal way, which is different for everyone. I think if you’re the kind of person who is online a lot and enjoys consuming large quantities of information throughout the day (guilty!) it’s well worth it.

Scanning the updates from the 102 people I now follow (a mix of those people I know, people I admire or find compelling in technology or the online world, and a grab bag of folk I’ve met along the way), I was struck by the different kinds of information, coverage, links, and news I was provided with overnight and into my Saturday morning coffee.

It’s a unique experience that no other platform or service can provide. Twitter is very simple: you send out short messages, and people who sign up as a “follower” receive them. So everyone has people who follow them, and people that they follow. And that’s it. The compelling and complex and intriguing and addictive part comes in with the ways in which this simple system is utilized.

Here’s my take on Friday night, Twitter-style.

Live Coverage
Fire in Tony Hung’s condo! Tony had the (real time) presence to cover the fire that lit up his building in Toronto. Quite apt and to the point he kicks off with: “There is a FIRE in my condo!!!” Then adds, “3am and the whole building has exited on the street.” After a series of updates, Tony reflects. “Firetrucks are heading out now. What an interesting experience (a real fire) … lots of things I’d do differently next time.” And “Grab some external hard drives, get some gloves, make sure everyone has extra clothing … we already had a box full of critical things.”

Twitter provides an ability to send out swift updates on breaking news. Twitter and new services like Qik, an early play on live video streaming from mobile phones, are becoming tools in covering breaking and spontaneous stories.

Collective Events
Lots of chatter about the premiere of the new season of Battlestar Galactica. And pretty cool too that people began to poll each other about the episode (lived up to expectations? Etc.) as soon as it finished airing. Luckily I saw no cries for the need for “spoiler alerts” as no plot details were given away. And Dave Winer tied Twitter into Battlestar, saying: “Wish they had a bit in Twitter prefs that said whether you were caught up on BSG or not.”

And speaking of polls, Greeter Dan polls the Twitter crowd on Burning Man: “Should I go to Burning Man this year? I have tickets. I’ve been 10 years in a row. Is this year to take a break and so something else?”

News and Events Overseas
The Downing Street Twitter profile is great, keeping us informed of the goings on in the Prime Minister’s office and news of the United Kingdom. On Friday night (Saturday day UK time) we learned that: “The Prime Minister had a good discussion with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet Jeria earlier on global economics and cooperation.” And later: “Gordon Brown urges restraint “all round” on the issue of Tibet. The PM confirms his attendance at the Olympics this summer.”

Live Event Coverage
We were (slightly) privy to the partying of the twitterati in San Francisco. Mike Arrington of TechCrunch fame: “dinner with @gaberivera @1938media @nickgonzalez at indian place on calif. ave. interesting gossip.” The @ symbol is a convention on Twitter that creates links to other Twitter profiles.

Arrington goes on to note such things as: “Interesting quote I just heard ‘Twitter separates the men from the boys.’ rather quickly, I’ll add. just something@1938media said about twitter fights, and how some people tend to crush others.”

There were other general calls for Twitter get togethers: Dave Morin: “Come out in North Beach! Headed to Apt24 with @jsmarr @brit @aaronsittig @jessybigeral @chriscox @slee and @naomi.”

Technology and Webby Discussions
One of my favorite reasons for checking into Twitter is because of the great access to webby conversations and links that you won’t find anywhere else. Here are some examples from Friday night:

Louis Gray: “Thinking out loud: If your RSS reader started missing stories from some of your feeds, how would you ever know? Is it doing that now?”

Phillip Winn: “Discovered a problem with an ad late Friday night: do I let it run through until Monday, or hope someone is working tomorrow and can fix it?”

Robert Scoble: “Whoa, Wordpress.com’s administration tools totally changed look. Yowza.”

Michael Parekh uncovered an amazing chart showing Friendfeed’s growth: ” This chart I did on Compete.com shows Twitter vs. Pownce vs. Friendfeed. Friendfeed just took over Pownce: http://tinyurl.com/6fbsqa.”

Human Moments
Finally, you just get some really nice and immediate human moments every now and then. bpm140, AKA Eric Marcoullier: “Parker is on the verge of crawling. Celebrating these last few moments of relative immobility by… cleaning the kitchen.”