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Spider
04-20-2011, 10:34 AM
Today at 3.45pm CentralUS, President Obama is holding a live "townhall" style meeting which is being broadcast live on Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/WhiteHouse

I am interested in the technology. Has anyone any idea how difficult and costly this is? What is involved in putting on such an event - not so much a presidential event but one by an individual person or private company?

vangogh
04-20-2011, 11:10 AM
Pretty cool that the townhall will be broadcast over Facebook, though it makes sense since it's where so many people are spending their time.

The technology has been available for years now. This won't be the first even broadcast live online. If you search for streaming you should find companies offering the services. Ustream (http://www.ustream.tv/) is one popular service. I'm not sure if there's any cost with Ustream, though there probably is for some services.

You might also search for things like how to set up a webinar or teleconference or similar.

Spider
04-20-2011, 11:21 AM
Yes, that - but I was really asking about Facebook. I haven't seen a Facebook event like that before.

Harold Mansfield
04-20-2011, 11:47 AM
I've noticed a few people doing it on Facebook. Orrin Hatch did one recently with Mark Zuckerberg, and MLB recently announced livestreaming on Facebook (http://www.wired.com/playbook/2011/03/mlb-facebook/)

Facebook launched their live streaming channel just recently (Facebook Live | Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/FacebookLive)) and has been Facebook generated content and parnetships so far. It's actually just a partnership with a company that specializes in live streaming (Livestream - Be There :: Broadcast LIVE streaming video (http://www.livestream.com/)). You could just go to the source and do business with them, but it's doubtful that you could configure it to your Facebook page at the moment. As far as I know it's not available to the general public as a service. or add on to your Facebook page or account.

Back during the 2008 election when Obama visited Facebook's headquarters, he actually recruited and hired one of Facebooks engineers and social media marketing experts, so he is ahead of the curve compared to most others.

Spider
04-20-2011, 02:28 PM
Interesting - Thanks, Harold and VG.

Patrysha
04-20-2011, 02:38 PM
It's been a Facebook feature for at least a year and a half...Both U2 and KISS had concerts that were streamed live online and FB was one of the ways that they could be seen. If I'm not mistaken the federal debates last week were streamed through FB too...

You can livestream onto Facebook using Ustream but if you want the free version (ad supported) you need to apply for it and the whitelabel service comes with a $15,000 one time development fee...that's been around about a year or so..http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/24/facebook-launches-a-live-stream-box-partners-with-ustream/

Vpype is a new ap that is free and just came out last month...I haven't tried it yet, but read a review on it by Mari Smith a week or two ago...http://www.marismith.com/new-facebook-live-video-streaming-app/