[reblogged from the original on Mashable on November 10]

by Jennifer Van Grove

Live streaming video service Livestream has just released a Facebook application for Page owners that offers admins a simple way to stream live video from their Facebook Pages.

The Livestream for Facebook application works in conjunction with the Livestream Procaster software for PC and Mac and gives Page owners the ability to stream live to their Facebook Page with a single click. The application is also fully customizable, supports Facebook chat and has features baked in that encourage Page visitors to share activity on their walls.

While live streaming services like Ustream and Justin.tv have been around for years, they’ve remained relatively niche in nature and have yet to really break outside the tech and entertainment bubbles. Before today, brands could work with these services to build custom live streaming video experiences into their Pages, but for a cost. Facebook, for instance, partnered with Livestream to power its Facebook Live channel.

Livestream’s do-it-yourself Facebook application for streaming video will no doubt help to popularize the live streaming movement for brands and businesses, especially given that the application is free to use, easy to install and works within Facebook’s familiar (and often viral) confines.

The application is now available through Livestream or Appbistro.

[reblogged from the original on TechCrunch on November 10]

by Alexia Tsotsis

Livestream, the live video streaming service that has hooked up with Facebook in the past for Facebook Live, is launching another partnership with the social networking giant. From today onward brands with a Facebook fan page can manually link up their Livestream channel to their page and host live video on Facebook for the first time ever, for free.

The Livestream For Facebook application allows you to take your current Livestream channel and embed it onto your Facebook page as well as manage multiple tabs and customize your viewer. Livestream also plans on added Facebook Credit capability for Pay Per View services in the near future.

As of today, interested users can download the Livestream Procaster here or find it on Appbistro and start live streaming video in one click to Facebook, their Livestream channel, their personal website and/or phone.

This move is a harbinger of the next step in live video streaming, social. While both Livestream and Ustream have been providing white label livestreaming on Facebook for about a year, this is the first time this feature is available on DIY basis at no cost. Big brands that have already signed up include Ford Explorer, Maroon 5, and The Women’s Conference.

Says Facebook’s Erin Kanaley, “We have seen a growing need by brands and artists wanting to live stream inside their Facebook page to engage their community. While we are platform agnostic, we are excited to see Livestream deploying the first self-service application to enable live streaming within Facebook pages”

Livestream broadcasts over 1.4 million channels and boasts 22 million unique monthly viewers, supporting both ad free and ad sponsored viewing. In the same space as Ustream and Justin.tv, the video streaming service has $12.7 million in funding led by Gannett.

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

Coming off a successful tour for their fourth album “The Incredible Machine”, Sugarland will sit down with Billboard for a Live Q&A on Thursday November 4 at 4:30pm ET. Fans can ask them their burning questions about the next leg of their tour, starting in March, or anything else they want to know. They can tweet those questions now to @billboarddotcom using hashtag #bblivechat, then tune in Thursday to see if their question gets answered!

It’s been a good year for Sugarland. Their 2009 live album, “Live On the Inside,” hit to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and just this week “The Incredible Machine” repeated that feat by topping the Billboard 200.

For more info on Sugarland, visit SugarlandMusic.com and don’t forget to watch them live at http://livestream.com/Billboard.

Music City Roots: Live From The Loveless Cafe, Nashville’s acclaimed weekly roots/Americana radio show, is proud to announce a new broadcast partners when it returns for its first anniversary show on Wednesday October 20 at 8pm ET / 7pm CT.

Livestream.com will provide a new multi-camera broadcast, streamed free to thousands of fans worldwide at MusicCityRoots.com and Livestream.com/MusicCityRoots. Roots will now be able to syndicate this broadcast anywhere on the Web through a single embeddable player widget, complete with Facebook, Twitter and chat integration. With this partnership, Livestream will provide an engaging user experience for the Roots audience.

To learn more about Music City Roots: Live From The Loveless Café, visit MusicCityRoots.com.

[reblogged from the original on NewTeeVee.com on October 14]

by Ryan Lawler

Livestream is ramping up its efforts to court music labels and Hollywood studios with the opening of a new office in Los Angeles. And the startup’s first hire for the office is new Jeff Varnell, who was poached from Livestream competitor Ustream.

Varnell joins Livestream as its new executive vice president of business development, and will lead the new L.A. office and studio. Also joining him on the west coast is Livestream head of production Otto Cedeno, who is relocating to L.A. to head up operations and production there. In addition, Livestream plans to add three director-level hires to strike partnerships in three main verticals: music, movie studios and brands.

Sound familiar? That’s the same type of template Varnell followed when he led the media team at Ustream as director of business development there. While he was on board, Ustream found some significant traction with studios and brands that wanted to use live events — like streaming red carpet movie premieres — to drive interest in their products. Livestream is hoping that it too can strike similar relationships.

Livestream CEO Max Haot said in a phone interview today that the company wants to ramp up the live streaming and turnkey production services that it offers to media companies. “With these live streaming premieres, it’s usually the same department that is buying pre-roll,” Haot said, “but it’s more effective for [consumers] to watch a 20-minute movie premiere” than to watch a two-minute video trailer.

The strategic initiative comes as Livestream tries to get more aggressive about growing its business. According to Haot, the startup has generated more than $5 million in revenue, and has reached profitability already this year.

Photo of Hollywood sign courtesy of Flickr user Sörn.