[reblogged from the original on Mashable.com on August 13]

by Adam Ostrow

Facebook, which is already widely used as a platform for distributing live video, is making a play of its own with a new app called Facebook Live.

However, unlike services like Ustream and Livestream that offer live video features for Facebook Pages, Facebook Live is more of a channel dedicated to the happenings of the social networking company as opposed to a platform for others.

In a statement, the company says it will be using Facebook Live “to be your window into what’s new at Facebook” including celebrity guests that stop by the company’s HQ, demos of new features from employees and special events taking place (conceivably, things like the f8 conference).

The app itself looks a lot like other live video platforms, with integrated chat that broadcasts out to the News Feed. It’s also embeddable, and the company will be testing it out when actress America Ferrera stops by at 6 p.m. ET this evening.

It will be interesting to see how Facebook goes about promoting the feature. Might we see notifications in the News Feed when a big guest stops by the company’s HQ? That would give the site an opportunity to aggregate some huge audiences around live video, though it remains to be seen if that’s in the cards or if this is more of a PR move to make the company feel more personable.

Either way, it’s a nice boon for Livestream, which has been chosen as the official live video partner for the project.

The Smashing Pumpkins, The Flaming Lips, The Black Keys, The National, and Spiritualized will headline each night of a five-night concert series to celebrate 25 years of SPIN Magazine. These five shows will combine for a total of 25 hours of amazing live music and will be streamed live on Livestream, on SPIN.com  and on the presenting sponsor’s Facebook page, ZYNC from American Express. The first four concerts will be broadcast live from The Bowery Presents venue Terminal 5, while Spiritualized will perform at Radio City Music Hall on Friday July 30.

The feed, provided by Livestream and made possible by ZYNC from American Express, will only be made available to fans who have “liked” the ZYNC Card on Facebook. Fans will be able to interact during the live stream through Facebook and Twitter.

“ZYNC from American Express is the ideal partner to help us celebrate SPIN’s 25th year. Over the years, we have seen the industry grow and change in immeasurable ways,” said Malcolm Campbell, SPIN’s publisher. “This concert series is the best of both the old and the new world. Not only are we helping to produce incredible live music, the cornerstone of SPIN since its inception, but we’re able to broadcast it to fans all over the world with our partners at American Express on the Web.”

“SPIN has its finger on the pulse of music, continuously evolving in unique ways to engage new generations of music lovers,” said Mary Hines, vice president, ZYNC Product Management, American Express. “ZYNC was designed with music lovers in mind, giving ZYNC Cardmembers unique music-related experiences that they can then share with their network of family and friends.”

You can watch every single night of SPIN 25th Anniversary Celebration at http://livestream.com/SPIN25.

When the HullabaLOU Music Festival was announced last November at Churchill Downs, the three-day event seemed to come out of nowhere. Now, after months of planning, watch the inaugural festival live on Livestream this weekend, Friday July 23 to Sunday July 25 at http://livestream.com/hullabaLOUfest.

Hosted at the legendary Churchill Downs in Louisville, KY, home of the Kentucky Derby, this will be the first concert held there since 2007. Live music, not night racing, will be generating most of the after-hours excitement. Hear a wide range of artists that blend the sounds of classic rock, country, adult contemporary and bluegrass on five stages throughout the sprawling 147-acre facility.

“It’s a pretty unique bill. I don’t think there’s any other festival in the country that combines those things,” said Quint Davis, who booked HullabaLOU through his New Orleans-based Festival Productions Inc., one of the country’s largest festival producers.

The three-day music festival will feature Gov’t Mule, The Avett Brothers, Dave Matthews Band and more. Designed to be an annual event, over 65 music acts have been confirmed for HullabaLOU. Keeping checking our blog and the HullabaLou Livestream channel to see when your favorite artist will be performing!

The Oscar De La Renta 2011 Resort Collection was shown in a runway presentation today to an audience in New York City and simulcast to a global audience of Oscar devotees and runway fans alike on Livestream and Facebook. While the show boasted ruffles, stripes and the brightest of brights for next year’s would-be couture class, the most interesting part of the broadcast happened off the runway, just as the show was about to begin.

In a short pre-show interview, the master himself, Oscar De La Renta was asked why he decided to stream the runway presentation.

I think that there is so much happening in technology…that is so unbelievably exciting today, so many ways to reach a consumer, to excite a consumer…there are so many ways to reach that wide world, you know?  And why wait?  I think it is exciting that people [are] seeing it as it happens.

His response gives credence to a host of houses which are preparing to stream their shows this September in New York, Paris, London, and Milan. This past February, Livestream brought fast fashion to the masses in realtime, broadcasting live from the Fall 2010 collections at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York. Several similar streams are planned planned for the Spring 2011 shows this September.

Watch a replay of the 2011 Resort Collection presented by Oscar De La Renta below (Oscar is interviewed at 3:43 mark) and visit facebook.com/oscardelarenta to become a fan and be notified of future runway streams.

Anna Wintour Watches From The Front Row

A Sample of Next Year’s Resort Fashion Now

[reblogged from the original on NYTimes.com; a version of this article can also be found in The New York Times on June 2, 2010 on Page A1 of the New York Edition]

By Brian Stelter

When Israeli commandos attacked the so-called Freedom Flotilla, both sides were well armed — with video cameras — and both sides have released a blizzard of video clips as evidence that the other side was the aggressor in the conflict on Monday, which left nine activists dead.

Once again, the political power of the moving picture is on display, as it was last year when a video showing the death of a young protester in Iran, Neda Agha-Soltan, became a symbol of resistance in that country.

The flotilla videos have proved a popular draw online, with one from the Israel Defense Forces attracting more than 600,000 views on YouTube. Scenes from both perspectives have been shown in a continuous loop on television news programs all over the world, stirring public outrage.

But what is missing so far from the flotilla clips on both sides is context: it is difficult to establish the sequence of events or, more simply, to determine who attacked first. The videos have made it all the more murky.

“On a matter like this, public opinion is awfully important, in terms of determining which image is really going to last,” said Jim Hoge, the editor of Foreign Affairs, who observed that there had been a gradual increase in the use of video clips to bear witness and shape opinion.

“First it was people in crowds with mobile phones,” he said, speaking about the Neda video. “Now, as is so often the case, governments catch up and begin to use the tools for their own purposes.”

Activists do, too. The flotilla’s organizers, from Insani Yardim Vakfi, the Free Gaza Movement and other groups, were Webcasting live from the open seas as the confrontation started, using the services of Livestream, a New York-based company that hosts free Webcasts.

The organizers “chose to make their trip to Gaza a media event,” said Max Haot, Livestream’s co-founder. Aboard the ship was a “full multicamera production,” he said, uplinked to the Internet and to a satellite that allowed news channels to rebroadcast live pictures of the raid in progress.

The Israeli military has used its YouTube channel to post nearly 20 videos, sometimes enhanced by graphics and captions, trying to show that its soldiers were acting in self-defense.

Representatives of the Israeli military and the Free Gaza Movement did not respond to interview requests about their media operations on Tuesday.

Video images from the vessel, the Mavi Marmara, were viewed by a quarter of a million people on Livestream, Mr. Haot said, and after the attack they were watched by countless others on television. In one especially notable scene, Israeli soldiers could be seen hoisting their guns (just paint-ball guns, the Israelis said) in preparation for the raid.

In a matter of hours, the Israeli military was publishing videos of its own, showing the action from the perspective of its soldiers. In one video apparently filmed before the raid occurred, a military cameraman is standing next to a soldier who is addressing the flotilla and directing it to a port, seeking a peaceful outcome.

In a later video, the soldiers appear to come under attack from activists who wield metal poles and chairs, which was emphasized in the video with yellow circles added by Israeli producers. Another video claims to show weapons found on the ship, including slingshots and knives.

The videos try to bolster the case that the soldiers were acting in self-defense when they fired at the activists. In one clip, an activist appears to push a soldier off the vessel.

What is not clear is what stage of the attack the video portrayed. Many activists have said that the Israelis fired stun grenades and tear gas, injuring people on the deck, before the commandos made their descent, and that the activists were simply retaliating.

The YouTube clips are part of an aggressive effort by the Israeli military to better communicate its work to the public. The I.D.F. channel has counted about 10 million views since it was started in December 2008.

Supplementing the war of images by the two sides, journalists filed reports from the Mavi Marmara. In one live television report that circulated widely on YouTube, a reporter for Al Jazeera English, the English-language arm of the Arabic-language news network, was shown stating that the vessel was “raising a white flag to the Israeli Army” amid the attack, but despite that, “the Israeli Army is still shooting, still firing live munitions.”

Shooting could be heard in the background, but again context was lacking. Al Jazeera’s account was cited by bloggers as evidence that the Israelis had attacked without provocation, but that assertion was not borne out by the video.

The nonprofit group Reporters Without Borders said Tuesday that at least 15 journalists who were aboard the flotilla had been detained by Israel and had not made contact with their respective news outlets. Among them were journalists from the Kuwait News Agency, The Sydney Morning Herald and Al Jazeera.

“They were not allowed at all to speak, so to get the other side of the story, the eyewitness account was the only piece of information that we had,” Salah Negm, the director of news for Al Jazeera English, said in a telephone interview from Qatar.

The fact that the Mavi Marmara was able to keep streaming — and the networks were able to keep reporting — as shots were fired underscores the challenges that the authorities face in a digital age. The right-leaning Jerusalem Post reported that the Israelis had intended to “jam the signals” from the vessel and blocked cellphone traffic but could not stop satellite transmissions.

“Without an Israeli response, which came out later in the day and seemingly proved that the soldiers acted in self-defense, the media were full of one-sided reports based on Al Jazeera,” the newspaper stated. “What Israel needs to realize is that in today’s media world, every minute counts.”

The episode proved to be a challenge, too, for third parties like Livestream that provide the backbone for video viewing on the Internet. Mr. Haot said Livestream thought about whether to censor the live video but decided not to, having concluded that it was “a controversial but genuine humanitarian mission.”

Still, he said, he found himself thinking that his Internet start-up needed policies in place to handle live videos of conflicts in the future. “After the events unfolded,” he said, “I spent most of my Monday wondering if we had helped terrorists or a great humanitarian cause.”

Livestream partners Hanson were the special guest at Saturday night’s Tulsa, OK stop on Conan O’Brien‘s “The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour.” The band played a few of their hits on stage and enjoyed the rest of Conan’s show so much they decided to chat with him backstage post-show. The chat appeared on Hanson’s channel which can be found at http://livestream.com/hansonmusic and http://www.hanson.net/alive. It was also featured on the official Conan tour blog at http://www.teamcoco.com/live. You can watch a replay of this hilarious chat right now below. Livestream is definitely on Team Coco!

Conan Chats with Hanson Backstage:

F8, the Facebook developer conference, was held earlier today for the third time in San Francisco. Amidst much anticipation, CEO Mark Zucherberg took the stage to introduce the next version of the Facebook platform, including a host of new features that have the potential to transform the social/semantic web.

As ever the conference was open to a limited number of developers. This year however, for the first time ever the entire event was streamed live to thousands of viewers on the web using the Livestream Platform.

We’re excited to partner with Facebook and the F8 conference has been a great opportunity for us to showcase some upcoming technologies of our own here at Livestream. The Facebook application, designed specifically for this event, boasts six simultaneous channels, a host of social features (chat, live-blogs, social feeds, recordings) and even support for the iPad and other HTML5 enabled devices.

If you missed the event, you can still check out the Livestream Facebook application and watch a replay of Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote address here.

[Posted Sunday, April 18, 2010 at 12:01 AM PT]

Written by Liz Shannon Miller

In our ongoing feature featuring noted online video execs, today we offer up Max Haot, CEO of Livestream.com. Before founding Livestream, Haot founded ICF, a media asset management platform, which, according to Crunchbase, was sold to Verizon Business in 2005. He’s also a big fan of Facebook, and he is Belgian!

1. What’s the one big issue/law/attitude/restriction that you think is holding back the industry?

The hypocrisy of video platforms when dealing with piracy. There’s a consistent claim made by all video platforms that there’s no solution to video piracy due to the high volume of content. It’s simply not true. But it’s convenient to keep the growth from pirated content, thanks to the protection provided by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The reality is that there are many simple solutions which [Livestream] implemented successfully — for example, limiting simultaneous viewership to 50 viewers, and manually verifying channels who want a higher limit, has thwarted piracy on Livestream. If we can do it, all our competitors can. And even YouTube can do it: Our users upload more video content every hour than Youtube users.

All the cards are not played yet. While YouTube’s copyright strategy looks like the winning way to grow early on, the outcome of the ongoing Viacom/Google lawsuit might change this… very soon.

To read the rest of the article, go to http://newteevee.com.

After announcing their Livestream partnership this past week, the Associated Press streamed the 2010 Academy Awards red carpet ceremony on Sunday March 7th.  On a night when The Oscar’s achieved its best viewership in 5 years, Livestream’s red carpet coverage concluded with George Clooney saying farewell to over 100,000 concurrent viewers.

With appearances from major celebrities including Miley Cyrus, James Cameron and George Clooney, fans were given unprecedented access to the awards, including live fashion commentary and a discussion of the night’s projected winners with the AP’s top entertainment editors.  NewTeeVee took note of the buzz surrounding the player, noting the success of Livestream’s broadcast even in comparison to major outlets like ABC.

By partnering with Livestream the AP is working to bring this type of exclusive content to their fans on a regular basis, and will continue “to pioneer the distribution of packaged news and event content using emerging technologies” according to AP’s Global Director of Entertainment Products Michael Dutton.  Another major aspect of the partnership was AP’s player syndication, which was taken advantage of by a number of media publishers including AT&T, Verizon, Bild.de, The Daily Beast, Mercury News, NZ Herald, and the Hindustan Times.

For regular live celebrity interviews and information about upcoming events, or to watch an exclusive replay of the red carpet coverage, tune in to Livestream.com/aplive or become a fan of AP Live on Facebook.

Watch the full replay here:

Film critic Roger Ebert tweets about AP Live:

Miley Cyrus on the red Carpet:

Mo’Nique on AT&T Entertainment:

Best Supporting Actor Winner Christopher Waltz on the Daily Beast:

Avatar Director James Cameron and his wife Suzy Cameron:

AP Live on Verizon.com:

Oscars Red Carpet Syndicated on Hindustan Times:

Christopher Waltz on San Jose Mercury News:

Gabourney Sibide on ReelzChannel:

Best Actor Winner Jeff Bridges on the AP Live Facebook App: