Gawker: valleywag, michael seibel

Justin.tv to let users launch their own home-shopping networks

Owen Thomas — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:40:00 EDT

At first we found lifecasting the most depressing thing around; now, the practice of living your life attached to a camera seems depressingly popular, Silicon Alley Insider reports. Justin.tv has reached 1 million registered users. The site still has no business model, but CEO Michael Seibel says the company is working on an online payments system that will let lifecasters hawk wares to their viewers. Cancel that bit about lifecasting being a downer: The prospect of letting a million QVCs bloom is far scarier.

Justin.tv plans to make you pay

Jackson West — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:00:00 EDT

Justin.tv CEO Michael Seibel detailed how the personal video-broadcasting startup plans to break the profit barrier. His scheme? Setting up a transaction system so that users can pay to view content. He pointed to live sports as an example of something people have been willing to pay for in the past. Justin.tv does make it easy for anyone with a webcam (or video cable) to pirate broadcasts of sporting events.

However, signing distribution deals with American big leagues is rather more complicated — and expensive. The leagues have preferred to own their own Web outlets. Major League Baseball has nearly a decade of experience doing just that. Justin.tv's enablement of real-time piracy will not win it many clubhouse friends. And ultimately, why would anyone pay to watch crappy Flash video when they can get HD over satellite and cable? (Photo by miss karen)

Ustream.tv and Justin.tv respond to YouTube's live streaming gauntlet

Jordan Golson — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:30:55 EST

YouTube cofounder Steve Chen confirmed that YouTube is working on a live streaming product which would put it in competition with lifecasting startups like Ustream.tv and Justin.tv, as well as the "experimental" Yahoo Live service. We asked Justin.tv CEO Michael Seibel and Ustream.tv CEO Brad Hunstable how their companies felt about the move.

Michael Siebel, Justin.tv:

Justin.tv is the biggest live video startup with the most traffic, the most registered users, and the best community. But it wasn't easy to get to the top spot. There are many hard problems to building and scaling a live video site and Yahoo Live is going through those pains currently. I think YouTube will face similar challenges.

Brad Hunstable, Ustream.tv:

YouTube's reported plans to move into live video is important validation for the market and will bring more awareness to the ways live video is changing the way people access media online. Ustream.TV has been singularly focused on live video broadcasting for more than a year now, and has built a large base of regular, compelling broadcasters who use our simple, reliable and robust platform to stream compelling, event-based content to a broad range of audiences across the globe, many of which weren't before privy to such media. Our growth is further evidenced by the traction we have gained through partnerships with leading companies such as Veoh, Digg, Sun Microsystems, the Republican National Convention, Bebo and others; the 200,000 broadcasters and millions of viewers that are now using our site regularly, and the daily growth we continue to experience. We welcome YouTube to this growing market and are glad that even more consumers will have access to great live video content.

"Important validation for the market," by the way, is standard startup-speak for "Thank God, maybe someone will buy us now." Above, Gawker video guy Nick McGlynn shows us a yummy cupcake on Justin.tv.