Announcing the New Livestream. Live. Redefined.
Dear Livestream Producers and Users,
It’s with great excitement that I would like to share with you first today we will be launching a brand new platform in beta: the New Livestream.
The Livestream product and engineering teams have been designing and developing the platform from the ground up for the best part of this year and we are excited to unveil it today and share the product and vision first with our passionate community of users and producers.
We hope that once you have a chance to experience the New Livestream and learn about all the features and strategic vision, you will agree that we are delivering on this mission and leaping forward the live streaming experience.
I would like to invite you to experience it yourself now by visiting http://new.livestream.com/
This Friday 28th at 9am EST (2pm Ireland Time), I will be officially announcing the New Livestream at the Dublin Web Summit (www.dublinwebsummit.com). Watch the full conference live from today, including my announcement Friday on the New Livestream: http://new.livestream.com/dws
I will also announce during this presentation our exclusive launch partner: The Volvo Ocean Race (www.volvooceanrace.com) kicking off the race on Saturday 29th.
We also would like to make it clear that the current ‘Original’ Livestream platform will not be affected in any way and the service will continue on as usual for Free and Premium users. More information on the roadmap and migration can be reviewed on this page.
Best Regards,
Max Haot
Co-Founder & CEO Livestream
Spring Cleaning of Neglected Videos
Livestream is growing, and over the past 4 years we’ve accumulated hundreds of thousands of gigabytes of neglected videos – some of which have never even been watched. What a waste!
As part of our spring cleaning initiative we’d like to give you, our producers, the opportunity to tell us which videos are important to you, so that we can clean up any videos you don’t need. We know what you might be thinking… but DON’T PANIC! You can still keep any/all of your videos. We’ve even created a simple wizard to help you find, save and download stuff you want to hang on to. We’ll tell you in advance if we find anything, and if your channel is active you’ll probably never hear from us as we’re only looking for very old videos that don’t get watched often.
As a little thank-you for the effort, we’re throwing in some good karma. We’ll be pledging 10% of any savings from reducing our storage usage. over the next three months towards carbon credits, to make our planet that little bit greener.
Heres how it works:
* Every month we’ll find your neglected videos (older than 6 months & viewed fewer than 10 times within the past 6 months).
* We’ll email you to let you know if we find anything.
* To save/download videos just follow the link to the cleanup wizard.
Or click here to log in to your account center and get started now.
Thanks for your understanding.
We love helping you deliver the best live video experience on the web.
Regards,
The Livestream Team
Today, Livestream was included in a list of 17 companies that were added to the Facebook Preferred Developer Consultant (PDC) program. Livestream joins a group of companies that Facebook believes “understand social mechanics and technical possibilities” of Facebook Platform.
In December 2009, Facebook introduced the PDC program to connect companies and brands to the resources they need to build with Facebook products and technologies. Recently, Facebook applications have become more branded and personalized, with companies large and small, well-known and not-so-well-known, often using a PDC in their campaigns and content. Livestream is proud to be included in this list of well-regarded companies.
Also included in the post on Facebook’s Developer Blog is the news that they are now accepting submissions for the next round of the PDC program.
To learn more about this program, visit http://developers.facebook.com/preferreddevelopers/
Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.
We’re here for you. Starting Tuesday, February 1, Livestream Premium Producers have access to telephone support and live chat support 7 days a week from 9:30AM – 8:30PM EST. Premium Producers may visit their Livestream Support Center for details. Premium Producers can also call US (Toll Free): 1 (877) 977-8732 or International: +1 (646) 490-1679.
For producers interested in upgrading to the Livestream Premium, our experienced sales team is available now to discuss the Livestream service, help you choose the plan that is right for you, assist with setup, and to help make the most of your Livestream broadcast.
Call our Premium Sales Team now (Toll-Free) at 1 (877) 977-8732 or purchase a Livestream Premium Plan immediately at www.livestream.com/gopremium
Along with these improvements to Premium Support, all Livestream Producers can expect faster responses by e-mail and continued improvements within the Livestream Support Center.
So give us a call. Whether you’re looking to get help testing your stream prior to your live event, wanting to know how to upgrade your production gear for HD quality broadcast, or are just looking for advice for best practices, we’re here to help. Stay tuned for additional announcements about our continued efforts to improve your Livestream experience in the months ahead.
Get to know your Livestream Premium Sales & Support Team!
Top Row (Left-Right): Jason: Producer Support, Ben: Director of Producer Support, Matt: Producer Support, Chris: Producer Support, James: Director of Premium Sales, Laura: Producer Support, Jeremy: Sales Associate, Tim: Sales Associate, Henry: Producer Support.
Bottom Row (Left-Right): Sal: Sales Associate, Graham: Sales Associate
Today we’ve rolled out the first version of our new Livestream Check-in Chat widget. The new widget is the first step towards a unified chat experience that will span Facebook, Twitter and traditional instant chat in a single user friendly interface.
What’s new?
- ‘Check-in’ to any live event to discuss it with others
- See who’s watching with you, especially your friends
- See where other people are watching from in the world
- Invite your Facebook friends to watch with you
- No Flash required (iPad channel page coming soon!)
Where will I see the new widget?
- On all Livestream.com channel pages
- In Procaster, our free desktop broadcasting software for Mac & PC
- Livestream for Facebook tabs (on Facebook.com)
What’s next?
This is just the first step. Soon we’ll be adding Twitter support as well as integration into our mobile app on iPhone (Android coming soon) and any future devices like set-top boxes or connected TVs.
FAQs:
Q. Do I need to do anything?
A. No, we’ve taken care of everything for you.
Q. What about Twitter Chat or Livestream Chat? Will any of this change?
A. Not for now, but eventually we will merge all chat widgets into this single Check-in Chat widget.
Q. Can I use the old Facebook chat widget?
A. No. We’ve now retired the old Facebook widget.
Q. What if I don’t want users to chat via Facebook?
A. You can always disable the widget from your configuration page.
Q. Will this widget spam my Facebook feed each time I post a message?
A. No, we’ll only make a single post in your feed when you check-in.
All old Livestream Players have now been retired and users with old embeds will see their players automatically updated. We recommend you visit your Channel’s Share Page in order to select an updated configuration that best suits your website. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact Livestream Support.
Previously posted:
Last year we released a faster, more social, & more flexible Livestream player, featuring a brand new design, richer sharing features and an incredible performance overhaul. Then, more recently, we released a family of embeddable widgets that can be used standalone or in combinations to add video libraries and chat to your streams.
Now the time has come to retire the old player, and we want to make this transition as smooth as possible for all our producers. If you have players embedded on your website, a blog or a social network, you may find the questions below helpful. Also remember you can always email support@livestream.com with any queries that arise.
You may be asking:
Do I have to do anything?
No. If you do nothing your embedded players will automatically switch over to the new design on the November 15th.
Will the new player retain my style settings?
Wherever possible the options set in your old embed tags will be mapped to equivalent options in the new player, but this will not be possible in every case. For instance, ‘color’ will still work, but enabling/disabling gloss will no longer have any effect.
What will happen to players with chat and/or video libraries?
These features are now superceeded by our embeddable widgets. If you have embedded your player using a JavaScript embed tag then we will be able to switch these automatically, but if you used object/embed tags then you will have to recreate your embed tag from the share page. It’s very simple, and ideally we advise recreating the embed tags in any case for more precise control.
Why can’t I use the old player?
It’s very difficult for us to support multiple versions of the Livestream player. It slows our development teams because every feature must be created and maintained twice and diminishes the user experience as many new social features are not available in the old player.
Until now we have continued support for the old player to give producers time to switch, but we hope you’ll agree that the new player and embeddable widgets are faster, more social and more flexible, so this is a great opportunity to upgrade.
Key Features:
Manage multiple pages
With the tab manager you can see all the pages where Livestream is installed and add the application to any pages where it is not. Get Started
Customize your pages
When you set up a channel for your Facebook Page you can add a header image and choose to show chat or the on-demand library. Get Started
… or let the Professionals do it for you
We can develop custom Facebook live streaming applications to suit your needs, including pay-per-view, donation, ‘like-to-watch’, live-blogging, multi-channel and much more. Watch the showreel.
We hope you enjoy your experience with Livestream for Facebook.
– The Livestream Team
Last year we released a faster, more social, & more flexible Livestream player, featuring a brand new design, richer sharing features and an incredible performance overhaul. Then, more recently, we released a family of embeddable widgets that can be used standalone or in combinations to add video libraries and chat to your streams.
Now the time has come to retire the old player, and we want to make this transition as smooth as possible for all our producers. If you have players embedded on your website, a blog or a social network, you may find the questions below helpful. Also remember you can always email support@livestream.com with any queries that arise.
You may be asking:
Do I have to do anything?
No. If you do nothing your embedded players will automatically switch over to the new design on the November 15th.
Will the new player retain my style settings?
Wherever possible the options set in your old embed tags will be mapped to equivalent options in the new player, but this will not be possible in every case. For instance, ‘color’ will still work, but enabling/disabling gloss will no longer have any effect.
What will happen to players with chat and/or video libraries?
These features are now superceeded by our embeddable widgets. If you have embedded your player using a JavaScript embed tag then we will be able to switch these automatically, but if you used object/embed tags then you will have to recreate your embed tag from the share page. It’s very simple, and ideally we advise recreating the embed tags in any case for more precise control.
Why can’t I use the old player?
It’s very difficult for us to support multiple versions of the Livestream player. It slows our development teams because every feature must be created and maintained twice and diminishes the user experience as many new social features are not available in the old player.
Until now we have continued support for the old player to give producers time to switch, but we hope you’ll agree that the new player and embeddable widgets are faster, more social and more flexible, so this is a great opportunity to upgrade.
Livestream Producers can now create and add motion graphics containing multilingual text straight from the Livestream Studio! Any language supported by unicode is now compatible with the Livestream Studio’s motion graphics set. These graphics include the Lower Third Overlay, Scrolling Ticker, Sting & other Full Screen graphics. The Livestream Studio & Video Library also includes this update, allowing users to change any video’s title to the language of their choosing.
Alongside this feature update comes the ability for users to add links in their motion graphics just like the Scrolling Ticker. Simply edit any motion graphic text field and input a valid link; we’ll take care of the rest. Examples can be found below:
Accessing these new features is easy! Simply visit your Livestream Studio or visit our userguide for additional information.
