bye bye ustream.tv, justin.tv & livestream.tv? Can we do it?

[Goldy]

Welcome to The Onsite Pool Network! "Combining efforts in the billiard industry"

Many of you possibly heard about our own high definition streaming servers capable of high bit streams and plenty of bandwidth. Yes, the rumors are true. Take a gander at our site. http://www.onsitepool.com The site may seem a vauge at the moment, but thats on purpose. We are adding new features behind the scenes everyday. Currently it’s just a TV window and Chat Window with plenty of room for billiard sponsors. We are effortlessly trying to keep the site as clear as possible making room for nothing more than billiard related content. (No KY Jelly or Trojan Condom Commercials, We promise.)

Now onto our madness and quite possibly sadness. Let us spell it out for you in our opinion, if you will..

We understand the billiard industry contains about 99% of the world's entrepreneurs.. ha ha.. (kidding).. It actually feels true. What a great industry to be apart of--Seriously. It takes a keen mind to master the game of billiards on the table, and off. I'm obliged to say I've invested 20 years myself. It's no wonder many of us are intuned to the capitalization the industry defines. Many of us have seen projects flop, and a few have made it, some of them barely.

We are hoping OnSitePool.com Productions will be one that will stay afloat for many years to come. We’ve invested huge amount of time and research into the project and even streamed our hometown tournaments and local pool room matches.

The key principle that motivates our effort is not so much to hog all the glamor, but enabling the industry to be revitalized. The sacrifice from so many that bring us countless hours of pool matches and content online is going undercompensated, if not at all. The more tournament directors throw at live streaming their events, the less players could possibly get. The large streaming sites are using our content for their gain. Imagine having 10% of that, or 20%, 30%, 50%. Now fathom 100%. One of our goals is to keep all potential revenue within the billiard community. We need to stop giving it away!

Many shows and streams that struggle can now support the cause and actually make money. Even going to stream risky 1st annual events, amateur events, and mom and pop tournaments can be feasible. Even if it’s a $100.00 profit. Or even the performance paid for the high bit stream and broke even. All would be better than losing money. There’s much overhead traveling the country and streaming billiards. With technology progressively renewing itself, it seems daily, will enable more streamers to hit the net. We need to be ready for them, enabling a larger market for the billiard sponsors and for the sake of seeing unknowns out there. It almost vindictive of the similarities how amateur pool supports the professionals. In this case the amateur streamers will create a larger audience for the sponsors, in fact supporting the billiard streaming community as a whole.

The delimiting factor will be our beloved sponsors. Imagine sponsors spending half of what they're currently spending for direct campaigns, or all campaigns for that matter. Sponsors will be able focus more of their advertising budget towards a turnkey environment where nearly 100% of impressions and clicks will be from the billiard community. They won’t have to divide their advertising budget into many pieces based on “word of mouth”, or rely on guessing who did the best. There’s currently no analytic data to justify their advertising budgets. There could be!

Elimination of all unrelated billiard in-stream commercials and advertising will increase viewer satisfaction. Server side advertising will be controllable by the streamer so not to interrupt programming. Streamed advertising “on-air” will still be permissible giving the local industries and promoters better opportunity to plug their products and services.

The billiard industry having its own high definition streaming servers will enable a slew of possibilities. It could eliminate the streamers responsibility struggling to find and negotiate sponsorship. Also, it will immediately reduce overhead from inflated premiums at the large streaming sites. Many times premiums are unknown and based on bandwidth consumption. Scary if I may add.

To further reduce overhead for our members, OnSitePool.com Productions offers backend support with the latest in webhosting, webdesign with our dedicated servers. This will create seamless integration into a member's website with our streaming capabilities and advertising structure themed around billiards and technology. Members will still have complete control of their website, if not more control, by their current provider. Instead of members having a ‘streaming channel’ they will have their ‘streaming website’ backed by OnSitePool.com. We will be happy to design a site based on your likes, or if you wish keep your site the same. The choice is left to our members.

To mention a few, we offer these services: Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress web content management. Also, cpanel, ssh, ftp access. The latest rtmp, rtsp, hls, cbr, vbr streaming in high definition to any device including iphones, ipads, and android mobile devices with selectable bit rates.

Here's the kicker. We need a couple of the larger streaming bodies such as TAR, PoolActionTV, InsidePoolTV, GBST, and among others to pony up their sponsorship rights. As a whole, more revenue would be generated. Distribution of the collaborated advertising revenues would be based upon impression and click performance. Just as many large internet conglomerates are doing today. i.e. Google, Yahoo, and Facebook.

I hope your reading hasn’t caused you to become turbulent. We kindly ask for respect on this venture, as we are dead serious. We are asking for respectable responses to this post and hopefully earn the right of the AZBilliard moderators to make this as sticky as possible.

Furthermore, if you wish to inquire about OnSitePool.com Productions and wish to speak with us directly to share your ideas or concerns, please direct those to sales@onsitepool.com.

Written by Zach Goldsmith, co-founder, OnSitePool.com Productions
Zach is also a league operator in Columbus, Ohio (Central Ohio NAPA)
Licensed by the North American Poolshooters Association, (NAPA)
http://www.napaohio.com; http://www.napaleagues.com

Edited by Jason Cobble, co-founder, OnSitePool.com Productions
Jason is a licensed Unix Administrator and owns uniXplatform Networks
Special thanks in Jason’s efforts making this a reality.

 

[Fast Lenny]

I read what your proposing and am not sure I see a huge benefit, all of the regular streaming pool guys are using Ustream and its been pretty good. We all have built up a great viewership that is continuing to grow, now if you were proposing X amount of money guaranteed per viewer then that would be another thing all together.

I would however like someone to go scout sponsors and maybe offer them packages for ad space on my streams. I am sure many streamers would need someone for this, you get a percentage of the package you sell. Offering to run commercials for the sponsor live, banners or other promotions along with X amount of streams a month or year and a guarantee of viewership numbers too, if you don't make the numbers then you do not get paid. If I guarantee 20,000 unique viewers for the month of May and do not get that many then I do not make money, if I show the guaranteed number then I get some dough simple as that.

I often thought if I got a dime for every view I had on my stream I would be doing very well, in the 5 days I streamed in Mountain View recently I had nearly 30,000 unique views and never went to the home page of Ustream so the numbers were billiard people. I do think that the people spending ad money in many magazines and papers are not getting as great of value as they would on a stream because most mags do not have a circulation of 30,000 in the pool world I am guessing or a smaller billiard newspaper. Hopefully they will smarten up to it and realize the future of pool advertising is streaming, its in your face and not just a page to flip over.

The stream has to have quality players though and a good quality picture or the numbers will not be good and I know this from the past 4 years I have done it and probably over 2,000 hours of streaming pool. If people do not want to see the adds on Ustream that pop up here and there during matches just get Ad Block Plus, its a free download and all those annoying ads online are gone like those on Youtube too.

I like the fact that my videos are on Youtube, its FREE and it is the go to place for online videos and you get tons of hits because of it and exposure to your site, products and sponsors. You can also enable revenue sharing for your content and get paid for it depending on hits, you need a good deal of hits to make real money of course. How do you propose to draw more traffic for the content on your site then Youtube or Ustream along with those sites being FREE? What is your marketing campaign? Again best of luck to you and what your trying to do, maybe it will be a success.

 

[JCIN]

I'm tired so I probably missed a lot with original post but....just exactly what is it you are trying to do? In english.

As a streamer what do I give you and what do you give me? Exactly.

Maybe I'm a natural skeptic but are you saying you have a way to beat YouTube and Ustream, that cost nothing to the streamer and a backbone and 24 hour service that AudioVideoWeb provides for PPV's?

Is the idea to create a single portal for all streams and pitching that to sponsors then chopping up revenue based on who draws the most eyeballs? Would I as a streamer give you full rights to sell sponsorships on my content and then take a piece of that or would I get a certain payment for each view of my content or benchmark number of views out a combined pool of all ad sales on all content providers involved?

I could ask questions forever. I gotta say it looks like a pool guy met an internet guy and had a good idea. The devil is in the details and the ass to make it happen. I look forward to hearing more but please leave out the press release speak and just tell us what you mean.

 

[GaryB]

Thank you Justin.

 

[Goldy]

I read what you're proposing and am not sure I see a huge benefit, all of the regular streaming pool guys are using Ustream and its been pretty good. We all have built up a great viewership that is continuing to grow, now if you were proposing X amount of money guaranteed per viewer then that would be another thing all together.

That's exactly the plan is to guarantee X amount of money based on viewers. There are many ways to exploit the analytics and create a structure that is fair based on all streamers who use OnSitePool.com. Actually one of the ideas we have devised is essentially barter the costs associated with broadcasting in high definition, and anything beyond that cost would be paid out to the streamers. Down the road, when more members/streamers join our network, revenues will increase because more impressions will be generated. The sponsors will be remitting payment based on those principles rather than a flat rate. Plus, of course, more sponsors will want to invest.

If a sponsor budgets $10,000 for the year, it will deplete based on impressions and clicks. Similar to Facebook Advertising. But out of that $10,000 portion of the revenue will go towards the network to provide free HD streaming, and the rest will be distributed through the network to those providing the content. Basic in, Basic out. Now, of course everyone is in business to make money, so, yeah, we'll probably take some of that revenue too.. But, the possibilities.

I would however like someone go scout sponsors and maybe offer them packages for ad space on my streams. I am sure many streamers would need someone for this, you get a percentage of the package you sell. Offering to run commercials for the sponsor live, banners or other promotions along with X amount of streams a month or year and a guarantee of viewership numbers too, if you don't make the numbers then you do not get paid. If I guarantee 20,000 unique viewers for the month of May and do not get that many then I do not make money, if I show the guaranteed number then I get some dough simple as that.

That's very similar to what we are trying to accomplish but on a more grand scale and more specialized.. Let us sell the advertising packages. You shouldn't be penalized for not meeting requirements/quotas either. We don't want to do this. Your only responsibility is to buy back the initial cost to stream in HD. The rest is profit. I guess you could imagine not having to do anything but setting up your stream, and streaming.. and not worrying about advertising as much.. This could also open up more opportunity on the local level, where you are streaming particularly. And of course we wouldn't be dictators and say you could do your own advertising. I guess we would maybe want it to be centralized around billiards and technology mainly.. We just don't want to create conflicts of interest with the Sponsors.. OnSitePool is about creating a Win-Win on all sides, and most of all keeping revenues generated by the billiard community, in the billiard community. Potential revenues as well.

I often thought if I got a dime for every view I had on my stream I would be doing very well, in the 5 days I streamed in Mountain View recently I had nearly 30,000 unique views and never went to the home page of Ustream so the numbers were billiard people. I do think that the people spending ad money in many magazines and papers are not getting as great of value as they would on a stream because most mags do not have a circulation of 30,000 in the pool world I am guessing or a smaller billiard newspaper. Hopefully they will smarten up to it and realize the future of pool advertising is streaming, its in your face and not just a page to flip over.

Your exactly right. OnSitePool when up and running and well vested in the community may pay you 10 cents per impression. But this would never be possible if the "high sponsors" are reluctant to advertise with us exclusively. But they should! If this venture succeeds, then it actually costs the sponsors less money. The bulk-power is way more enticing, plus the analytic data will make them smarter on how to budget their advertising dollars. That is good for everyone. Then we can run and go do those tournaments we wouldn't touch.. It's profitable. It's in-house. We're not throwing revenue potential to someone else. And the content is protected.

The stream has to have quality players though and a good quality picture or the numbers will not be good and I know this from the past 4 years I have done it and probably over 2,000 hours of streaming pool. If people do not want to see the adds on Ustream that pop up here and there during matches just get Ad Block Plus, its a free download and all those annoying ads online are gone like those on Youtube too.

I do agree that quality of players does generate more viewers, of course, naturally. But your reputation can also generate viewers too, even if you're streaming B-Players. Or streaming a unpopular match. People like to watch pool, and maybe the B-Players could generate the same viewers if it was made a bit more comical. Or lesson worthy of the 'wrong way to do things' 'bad habits galore'. All content is good content. And of course I don’t want to tell you how to stream.

The key to success is creating a need. That tool right now is High Definition. All live streams will go out in HD. Everything else afterwards will be up to you, and you can structure that content the way you see fit. Plus viewers can degrade their quality based on their connection speeds, especially on mobile devices when watching the live HD feeds.

I like the fact that my videos are on Youtube, it's FREE and it is the goto place for online videos and you get tons of hits because of it and exposure to your site, products and sponsors. You can also enable revenue sharing for your content and get paid for it depending on hits, you need a good deal of hits to make real money of course. How do you propose to draw more traffic for the content on your site then Youtube or Ustream along with those sites being FREE? What is your marketing campaign? Again best of luck to you and what your trying to do, maybe it will be a success.

Why are you enslaving your content to YouTube so they make money? Then let them dictate when you are going to make money? You want to make money right? That's what OnSitePool is going to do. We are all generating invaluable content. Why do you think owners of Copyrighted Material are getting mad when its all over the free sites? Their losing money. One of the major reasons why SOPA was born. It's would infuriate you knowing how much money we are all losing, when if banded together, we can protect the content and continually generate revenue for US and the billiard community, ON OUR NETWORK.

Our server will utilize YouTube or whichever avenue you would like to re-broadcast your content. It actually saves us, you, and the sponsors money. The more free services we integrate seamless for our members, then the less bandwidth is consumed for re-broadcasting. There will be pay services for members to come back and watch any of the high definition footage and even opportunity for streamers to upload edited and higher quality broadcasts for viewing based on your terms. That content you can have complete control over. We just may ask for a percentage to pay for the bandwidth costs. Just another avenue for streamers who join our network to make money with their content, and not YouTube, Ustream, Livestream, that stream.

Please understand it’s really late for me. Thanks for your response. We really do appreciate it. Hopefully you’ll be using OnSitePool.com for your streaming in the near future.

Zach.

 

[Goldy]

I'm tired so I probably missed a lot with original post but....just exactly what is it you are trying to do? In english.

I'll do my best., I thought my English was good in the opening post..

As a streamer what do I give you and what do you give me? Exactly.

You're technically not giving up anything. We're creating an avenue in which you can consistently broadcast in HD, and buy down the costs based on your performance. Essentially in theory, if the cost to use our services is $647.00 for a 6 hour stream @ 1500k, and your impression and click performance was $1,647.00. We'll credit you $1,000.00. Complete analytic reports will be provided to you and sponsors to ensure no confusion.

Obviously we have to have all the sponsorship leverage for this to happen. That is the largest hurdle we will face in this venture.

In theory, over the long haul, Sponsors will pay less, and streamers will consistently make cash when they broadcast. The key factor is creating a consistent field of measure for both sides. Putting the money in the correct places maximizing benefit.

Maybe I'm a natural skeptic but are you saying you have a way to beat YouTube and Ustream, that cost nothing to the streamer and a backbone and 24 hour service that AudioVideoWeb provides for PPV's?

The only reason, my friend, why those sites are unbeatable, is because we foolishly keep embellishing our content to them. It’s a vicious monopoly.

We will actually encourage OnSitePool.com streamers to pick their poison site. Except.. The content that is packaged for those will be of significant less quality, branded to entice the eyeballs to come watch it in high definition, or come back and watch an edited version with better stuff. This feature will be on the fly. So no need to repackage. OnSitePool.com will have this neat feature for you at your disposal. YouTube, Facebook, etc. etc. How? Because with ABS, Flash Media Server stores as many variations you tell it in the manifest. You will essentially be able to tell our repackager (but there already packaged) which bitrate you want to send out as bait.

OnSItePool.com will blow anything and everything AudioVideoWeb provides. I promise.

Is the idea to create a single portal for all streams and pitching that to sponsors then chopping up revenue based on who draws the most eyeballs? Would I as a streamer give you full rights to sell sponsorships on my content and then take a piece of that or would I get a certain payment for each view of my content or benchmark number of views out a combined pool of all ad sales on all content providers involved

I think you essentially hit the nail on the head. I think “Yes” would be an appropriate answer to your whole paragraph. You would not however, have to give us full rights to your content.

We are not in business to steal content. But in all reality, what's the difference? You are already handing over the content to YouTube & Ustream for that purpose. But we'll keep that a secret..

The only benchmark that is of a streamers concern is the cost of the service. You beat that you're in the black. I guess the sophistication could be limitless based on agreed terms among all streamers who use the service on how to deal with copyrights and material infringement.

We couldn't use sponsorship money to compensate for re-broadcasts. Re-broadcasts have to be more lucrative in the manner that the eyeballs would pay a subscription. Then in theory, burning DVD's and creating box sets would be in the past. The key here is limiting the “event” to a 1 time HD broadcast only and sticking to that principal. With our services this will become a complete reality, but we do not want to tell streamers how to conduct their business.

I could ask questions forever. I gotta say it looks like a pool guy met an internet guy and had a good idea. The devil is in the details and the ass to make it happen. I look forward to hearing more but please leave out the press release speak and just tell us what you mean.

My opening post was professional. We are serious about this venture. Maybe I should redirect your tense. “I gotta say it looks like a pool guy met an internet guy and ^have a good idea.”

Thank you for your response. A few parts made me chuckle. Hopefully your dark side will leave you, and come stream with us.

Zach.

 

[Fast Lenny]

What is the realistic cost for the service of your site and HD streaming per hour? Obviously your saying the streamer will have to pay so much for so many hours so your starting out in the hole essentially and have to get above that to make a buck. Not sure if the HD video is worth that when the quality difference is not tremendously different from what I have seen to those streaming through Ustream using the HDV service they provide at the highest setting.

Perhaps you can post a video comparison with the same equipment or maybe when Mike goes live again we can check it out. Also most people out there it seems have problems watching or slow loading of HD video. The biggest thing is being in most poolrooms and not having to bandwidth to stream with what you need to output in HD. So many variables here that even if you can offer the best on your site for streamers they might not be able to have the bandwidth from location to location to do it along with the users being able to watch it.

 

[Cornerman]

We need a couple of the larger streaming bodies such as TAR, PoolActionTV, InsidePoolTV, GBST

So did you pitch it to these very approachable bodies or are you just now throwing out the net? It seems a discussion with Justin or JR or Lenny privately would give you the interest level rather quickly since their sponsors are their business.

I don't mean to sound critical because if it's all you say then I see benefit. But my ignorant opinion don't mean squat. You've got a serious pitch. Pitch wisely.

Freddie

 

[elvicash]

I think your statement about advertisers is somewhat telling in that you do not want Trojan a main stream advertiser and would never want such a company. I can watch law and order and see a trojan ad on my TV. I think pool needs directed ads by mainstream companies but I do not believe at this time thier is enough of a market to get their interest in sponsoring straming for pool or more directly they might not care to purchase pool streaming views. Why is that because there is not a wide enough viewership believe me coke, pepsi and chevy would all be fighting to get in and buy ad space if you had a streaming service and you could maintain 100,000 viewers / unique ip's at the same time if that number is under 1000 as I expect it is for most pool stream then we do not have presence to attract the big ad dollars of mainstream companies. Pool is slow so you would get a a long time to attract attention to ads but in this same thread people are talking about how to block ads if that is the idea why would any company want to pay for streaming. Now if you think the stream service will be supported by billiard related companies such as masters, predator, simonis etc I doubt you raise much ad funding in the long run. The women have such sponsors and they have to give all of thier content away to get on to ESPN. Let me tell you football, baseball and basketball do not give thier content away to espn, fox sport or to a company such as ustream or bigtruck streaming. They show the content on a free service but they hold thier rights and use that to bargain for a percentage of ad revenue. You want to provide the pipe and also bew the single point of contact to sell advertising buys to agencys. I do not see TAR giving you their advertisers and running their feeds through your pipe at your fees and taking what is left to provide the show. I will be suporised if we see any of the main streamers ceding control like that in the short term. But then I might be suprised.

 

[FastManners]

Discuss

Speak to the main streamers first and find out what would make economic sense for them to use you exclusively. Then speak to a couple of sponsors to determine their interest and what they would be willing to pay to be associated. To begin with, just do short term sponsorship deals. If you try and sell it on an cpm basis (cost per thousand views) or cpv basis (cost per view) from the start you may find you are going to underwhelm your sponsors as you have to buildup an audience. Stay away from selling on a cpc basis (cost per click), as video advertising is generally a branding medium.
Also stay away from long term sponsorships unless they are willing to pay more if your views increase significantly. Generally you offer better cpm/cpv rates for higher volume advertising buys.

Pick your ad server wisely. There are some free options out there, ideally ones that have a backfill of advertisers who you can make some revenue from while you secure advertisers. Tremor Video may be worth contacting, but make sure you have your ducks in a line first.

Basically, be real about your expectations and calculate budgets/revenue on extremely pessimistic income forecasts, while making sure that your initial set up is in place, if the product does take off and you get a decent amount of viewers and advertisers.

Good luck.

 

[JAM]

...Written by Zach Goldsmith, co-founder, OnSitePool.com Productions
Zach is also a league operator in Columbus, Ohio (Central Ohio NAPA)
Licensed by the North American Poolshooters Association, (NAPA)
http://www.napaohio.com; http://www.napaleagues.com

Edited by Jason Cobble, co-founder, OnSitePool.com Productions
Jason is a licensed Unix Administrator and owns uniXplatform Networks
Special thanks in Jason’s efforts making this a reality.

I'm not much of a technology guru, but it sounds like you have a product that might fill a niche. There's always going to be those who are skeptical when a new and innovative idea comes forth, but there's also savvy industry folk who are open-minded and will want to find out more.

Might I suggest you contact AzBilliards webmaster and think about how an ad banner on this forum might help get the message out better than this thread. It's just a thought.

Many industry folks do advertise via threads, and AzBilliards seems to have taken the approach that if it helps promote pool, then that's a good thing. The ad banner, though, might make AzBilliards website give your product the support it deserves.

I like your ambition and enthusiasm. Best of luck to you!

 

[JCIN]

I'll do my best., I thought my English was good in the opening post..



You're technically not giving up anything. We're creating an avenue in which you can consistently broadcast in HD, and buy down the costs based on your performance. Essentially in theory, if the cost to use our services is $647.00 for a 6 hour stream @ 1500k, and your impression and click performance was $1,647.00. We'll credit you $1,000.00. Complete analytic reports will be provided to you and sponsors to ensure no confusion.

Obviously we have to have all the sponsorship leverage for this to happen. That is the largest hurdle we will face in this venture.

In theory, over the long haul, Sponsors will pay less, and streamers will consistently make cash when they broadcast. The key factor is creating a consistent field of measure for both sides. Putting the money in the correct places maximizing benefit.



The only reason, my friend, why those sites are unbeatable, is because we foolishly keep embellishing our content to them. It’s a vicious monopoly.

We will actually encourage OnSitePool.com streamers to pick their poison site. Except.. The content that is packaged for those will be of significant less quality, branded to entice the eyeballs to come watch it in high definition, or come back and watch an edited version with better stuff. This feature will be on the fly. So no need to repackage. OnSitePool.com will have this neat feature for you at your disposal. YouTube, Facebook, etc. etc. How? Because with ABS, Flash Media Server stores as many variations you tell it in the manifest. You will essentially be able to tell our repackager (but there already packaged) which bitrate you want to send out as bait.

OnSItePool.com will blow anything and everything AudioVideoWeb provides. I promise.



I think you essentially hit the nail on the head. I think “Yes” would be an appropriate answer to your whole paragraph. You would not however, have to give us full rights to your content.

We are not in business to steal content. But in all reality, what's the difference? You are already handing over the content to YouTube & Ustream for that purpose. But we'll keep that a secret..

The only benchmark that is of a streamers concern is the cost of the service. You beat that you're in the black. I guess the sophistication could be limitless based on agreed terms among all streamers who use the service on how to deal with copyrights and material infringement.

We couldn't use sponsorship money to compensate for re-broadcasts. Re-broadcasts have to be more lucrative in the manner that the eyeballs would pay a subscription. Then in theory, burning DVD's and creating box sets would be in the past. The key here is limiting the “event” to a 1 time HD broadcast only and sticking to that principal. With our services this will become a complete reality, but we do not want to tell streamers how to conduct their business.



My opening post was professional. We are serious about this venture. Maybe I should redirect your tense. “I gotta say it looks like a pool guy met an internet guy and ^have a good idea.”

Thank you for your response. A few parts made me chuckle. Hopefully your dark side will leave you, and come stream with us.

Zach.

Never use one word when ten will do right?

Let me rephrase my initial assessment: It looks like a pool guy met an internet guy and had a good idea that was then kidnapped and brainwashed by a sales guy.

Good luck with your plans for world domination of the pool streaming market. I'll just stay over here with YouTube, Ustream and AudioVideoWeb instead of Zach, Jason and Mike.

Edit: You dont know a whole lot about how pool streaming really works do you? All this emphasis on HD streaming is useless. Well over half the venues I have streamed in over the years won't support putting a 1.5mbps stream out in the first place. A metric shit ton of casinos dont support that and the ones that do would probably charge $500-$1000 a day for the access. There is only one streamer out there who puts out a true 720p stream and thats Accu-Stats through AudioVideoWeb. No one is going to pay extra for HD either sending or receiving. The only possible way you guys could compete with AudioVideoWeb is if you are just acting as a reseller for another CDN.

Not to piss on your cheerios but the whole idea sounds interesting except it doesnt fit any part of how the real industry works at this time.

 

[Goldy]

What is the realistic cost for the service of your site and HD streaming per hour?

In a commercial setting, stream cost per hour would be dictated by consumption. If you're providing a 1k stream, and offering, lets say, a average of 700k/s x users, simple math will arrive you at consumption. In the very near future, I'm speculating, ISPs will have different pricing levels per Gigabyte during peak and off peak hours to be more competitive in the market.

Obviously your saying the streamer will have to pay so much for so many hours so your starting out in the hole essentially and have to get above that to make a buck. Not sure if the HD video is worth that when the quality difference is not tremendously different from what I have seen to those streaming through Ustream using the HDV service they provide at the highest setting.

That's why we're in this Venture. Funny you say you haven't noticed a significant difference from SD to HD. In fact with proprietary software, Our 1k streams you can actually read the ball numbers. I can tell you this, Wirecast isn't good enough, and neither of the other high dollar streaming software. I'm actually upset that I purchased Wirecast, though I'm sure many are using cracked versions.

Perhaps you can post a video comparison with the same equipment or maybe when Mike goes live again we can check it out. Also most people out there it seems have problems watching or slow loading of HD video. The biggest thing is being in most poolrooms and not having to bandwidth to stream with what you need to output in HD. So many variables here that even if you can offer the best on your site for streamers they might not be able to have the bandwidth from location to location to do it along with the users being able to watch it.

Yes. As we get closer to having a real product, which we can embed code and stream currently for anyone that would like to try it out, I think we'll use the billiard streaming audience to make the comparison as in all reality, they are the bread and butter.

Our venture also includes, as we've had contact with several room owners across the country, in which our service would compensate room owners the difference for internet upgrades just enough to squeeze at least 1k steams out of when applicable.

Our service will not be just providing services to our fellow billiard streamers, but to room owners as well. We are currently in the process of installing fixed HD streaming cameras at a few beta testing locations, which Audio and Video on demand will be offered for their matches and charged similar to pool time. This will enable us to obtain more content on the fly, and without even going to the site and setting up. Players can then, of course,can go back and watch themselves with scheduled levels of services from us.

Thanks for the great questions.. I think many will understand that we are not trying to create another ustream, justin, or livestream.tv network. We want to build a network for the Billiard Community, in which everyone can benefit at the same time holding onto all revenue and potential revenue for us, the network, and passing that savings onto the fans.

Zach.

 

[justadub]

Never use one word when ten will do

I laughed, I cried, I spit up my Cheeto's.....

 

[Goldy]

So did you pitch it to these very approachable bodies or are you just now throwing out the net? It seems a discussion with Justin or JR or Lenny privately would give you the interest level rather quickly since their sponsors are their business.

Absolutely! Just throwing it out on the net? Not exactly. Of course we're asking the billiard streaming community as a whole, diplomatically.

I guess we'll wait and see how much controversy this thread will spark. I'm sure it will spark many opinions and concerns. That is the plan precisely.

I don't mean to sound critical because if it's all you say then I see benefit. But my ignorant opinion don't mean squat. You've got a serious pitch. Pitch wisely.

Freddie

By all means Freddie, be critical. That's what makes a great product. I'm sure many of the fellow billiard streamers have come across this idea in some form or fashion, but have hit hurdles along the way. Maybe the resources were unobtainable at the time, and technology wasn't quite there yet.

Thank you for your response. I think many fellow billiard enthusiast will be the deciding factor if it's successful or not.

Zach.

 

[SpiderWebComm]

I recovering from a hang over today so maybe I didn't read closely enough. I'm confused how this model works.

Are you handling ppv services for the streamer? Will the viewers watch for free? If they watch for free, is this a straight sponsorship play? 1500k times, say, 500-1000 viewers is a shit-ton of throughput requiring tons and tons of datacenter resources and server clustering. Are you building this out yourself or are you working from a larger CDN such as Akamai or VitalStream? $100/hr of streaming PLUS whatever you collect for the tiny bit of sponsorship money available will NEVER cover hosting costs. You need to make money on a per-connection basis to stay interested in this business. Would that drive your costs above what the market will pay?

Justin is 100% correct. 1500k throughput on an upstream is a PITA to get in most venues. Like Justin, I've been streaming large corporate events for a long, long time-- well over a decade. Even in the largest venues, a 1500k dedicated-up is nearly impossible w/out a dedicated circuit (which is IMPOSSIBLE to afford for a pool event). You mentioned offering this to amateur and mom/pop events: how many rooms do you think can support a 1500k-up stream? You NEED value beyond your "HD" play.

I think if you want to be successful, you can't focus on just the pool industry. There aren't enough click-throughs / impressions. Otherwise, your cost-per-impression is going to be through the roof compared to larger services. I like your concept, but I'm clueless how you're going to make money. Your competing with competitors that drive hundreds of thousands of impressions/viewers. You'll be blessed to get 10% (or 5%) of their traffic. Without that traffic, you won't get sponsors. I dunno-- I'm lost.

Sounds cool -- but fiscally impossible. Please share more about how you plan to make it-- financially. If guys like Justin don't think you'll last in the long-run, they're not jumping ship because it's too much of a PITA to switch-up and then switch back with their content in limbo.

 

[Goldy]

I think your statement about advertisers is somewhat telling in that you do not want Trojan a main stream advertiser and would never want such a company. I can watch law and order and see a trojan ad on my TV. I think pool needs directed ads by mainstream companies but I do not believe at this time thier is enough of a market to get their interest in sponsoring straming for pool or more directly they might not care to purchase pool streaming views.Why is that because there is not a wide enough viewership believe me coke, pepsi and chevy would all be fighting to get in and buy ad space if you had a streaming service and you could maintain 100,000 viewers / unique ip's at the same time if that number is under 1000 as I expect it is for most pool stream then we do not have presence to attract the big ad dollars of mainstream companies.

I think you missed the point somewhat. There is plenty of revenue to be made with Billiard and Technology related advertising/sponsorship, and plenty of viewership. Especially since the OnSitePool.com product will be specialized, off the beaten path, and specifically catered towards billiards. This is exactly how twitch/justin.tv got their start streaming gamers.

Direct ads by mainstream may be filtered in if the bids get high enough. But for now, we want to suppress that notion, and maintain great online billiard streaming performances in High Definition. AND we quit selling out the content to the free sites which are making millions. Currently we don't see a dime of this.

I think many are missing the main point of OUR OWN Billiard Stream Service, FOR THE billiard community. The reason why so many currently have resorted to publishing their "pride and joy" up on the free sites is because they are not generating enough revenue themselves through traditional sponsorship, or their just plain greedy. Why? Sponsors only have so much budgeted for advertising. With many of our fellow streamers competing for that business, with no other option for the sponsor (which creates favoritism), creates overlap in cost. This also stifles voted upon increases and reluctance for sponsors to budget more advertising dollars in the future. They just aren't getting the results, obviously.

Pool is slow so you would get a a long time to attract attention to ads but in this same thread people are talking about how to block ads if that is the idea why would any company want to pay for streaming.

Really? Seriously? Their wanting to block ads? Why do you think this is happening? This is what stifles our viewership. We need to break away from the pack and specialize. Then change the priority and content of which advertisements we see. Direct Campaign Advertising..

Now if you think the stream service will be supported by billiard related companies such as masters, predator, simonis etc I doubt you raise much ad funding in the long run. The women have such sponsors and they have to give all of thier content away to get on to ESPN. Let me tell you football, baseball and basketball do not give thier content away to espn, fox sport or to a company such as ustream or bigtruck streaming. They show the content on a free service but they hold thier rights and use that to bargain for a percentage of ad revenue. You want to provide the pipe and also bew the single point of contact to sell advertising buys to agencys. I do not see TAR giving you their advertisers and running their feeds through your pipe at your fees and taking what is left to provide the show. I will be suporised if we see any of the main streamers ceding control like that in the short term. But then I might be suprised.

Your exactly correct. And I'm going to say you will probably be surprised. That's why were are here discussing this diplomatically. Because if we are successful, there could be some collateral damage done in the process. This is not our intention, but some things are just out of our control.

Thanks elvicash for your response.

Zach.

 

[abie10]

I happen to work in the business of providing servers and bandwidth to clients that want to do what you are doing.

Hardware and bandwidth are you biggest factors. Not advertisers or even streamers to pay for your service.

To blow players like ustream or audiovideoweb, you will have to have multiple servers...and a TON of bandwidth.

Not to mention the amount of coding and programming that comes with providing all those services out there.

The reason that ustream and audiovideoweb and those other providers are successful is because they fill a niche...and they are already here. They don't have the huge startup costs that comes with this type of business.

It would be one thing for an individual like TAR or Fast Lenny to setup a server or two and stream their matches and be successful at it because it's done on a much smaller scale.

That doesn't mean it can't be done...it just means that it's going to take a lot of cash, manpower, and programming to get there

 

[Goldy]

Speak to the main streamers first and find out what would make economic sense for them to use you exclusively. Then speak to a couple of sponsors to determine their interest and what they would be willing to pay to be associated.

To begin with, just do short term sponsorship deals. If you try and sell it on an cpm basis (cost per thousand views) or cpv basis (cost per view) from the start you may find you are going to underwhelm your sponsors as you have to buildup an audience.

Stay away from selling on a cpc basis (cost per click), as video advertising is generally a branding medium. Also stay away from long term sponsorships unless they are willing to pay more if your views increase significantly. Generally you offer better cpm/cpv rates for higher volume advertising buys.

Pick your ad server wisely. There are some free options out there, ideally ones that have a backfill of advertisers who you can make some revenue from while you secure advertisers. Tremor Video may be worth contacting, but make sure you have your ducks in a line first.

Basically, be real about your expectations and calculate budgets/revenue on extremely pessimistic income forecasts, while making sure that your initial set up is in place, if the product does take off and you get a decent amount of viewers and advertisers.

Good luck.

A post with great optimism, Thank you Fast Manners for your response.

 

[Goldy]

I'm not much of a technology guru, but it sounds like you have a product that might fill a niche. There's always going to be those who are skeptical when a new and innovative idea comes forth, but there's also savvy industry folk who are open-minded and will want to find out more.

Might I suggest you contact AzBilliards webmaster and think about how an ad banner on this forum might help get the message out better than this thread. It's just a thought.

Many industry folks do advertise via threads, and AzBilliards seems to have taken the approach that if it helps promote pool, then that's a good thing. The ad banner, though, might make AzBilliards website give your product the support it deserves.

I like your ambition and enthusiasm. Best of luck to you!

Thanks JAM for your great response. We would like to hope if this is successful many outlets in the billiard community will recognize our ambition to support a great cause. It's time to move forward and extend the opportunity to all the billiard enthusiasts out there, and make it affordable.

Zach.