Pirillo Live Using Freely Available Technologies

Over at BUZZscreen, I made mention of Chris Pirillo’s new venture. Chris is now broadcasting via webcam all day long, answering people’s questions, etc. He is answering 4-5 questions per day and posting the recordings to various video sites like Youtube. In between recordings, you’re basically watching him work at his computer. I was curious how he managed to get all this set up.

First off, you will see the that the video feed is branded by Ustream.tv. I went and checked it out and was quite impressed. Essentially, for free, you can set up an account and broadcast to the internet anything from your webcam. What gives them the ability to do that is Flash. I believe you need to have at least Flash 8 to make it work (somebody correct me if I’m wrong…perhaps its v9). However, you basically set up an account, enter some details for your “show”, and hit the button to start broadcasting. On my PC, the input into Flash was picking up my TV tuner, so I had to change the input via the Flash settings. But, it picked up my webcam input quickly and, sure enough, you could see me online looking like a fool. Ustream then provides code to embed the viewer into other webpages, which is what Chris did to allow you to see him on his site.

I was then curious how Chris was able to alter his webcam feed to to insert sponsor logos and the feed from his accompanying IRC channel. In doing some research into this, I have found that Macs are simply better equipped (software-wise) to do it. There are just more options out there for the Mac, which is why I believe Pirillo is using a Mac to host his webcam and Windows on the machine that you’re watching him use.

I also saw on his site the widget from Eyejot. Eyejot is another service which uses the same capability from Flash and allows you to send video messages via email. They give you a free inbox on the Eyejot website and you go to down with it. I can see the power of this for web businesses who want to allow their customers to send in video messages (i.e. testimonials). And its great for Pirillo because then he has video of the people who are sending in questions actually asking the questions! Also on the multimedia front, you might want to check out MyChingo, a site which allows your users to leave audio messages easily on your site. Basically, its audio comments.

It amazes me the kinds of multimedia capabilities now out there on the web. This kind of content is no longer a one-way flow from big broadcast to us “mere listeners”. It is now literally a matter of hitting a button to broadcast anywhere on the world from your PC. Strategically, I can see Chris’s desire to get into this. I think he only just started it a matter of a weeks ago. I’ve always said that video is a powerful medium, and now Chris is doing it each and every day – live. As a web businessman, I think Chris is making a very innovative and smart move.

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