DIY-TV

It's about 30 years behind schedule, but do-it-yourself TV is finally getting somewhere.

Comments

[Sandy]

Boy, if you think slashdotting is a problem now, just wait 'till everybody discovers your funny video blox about the kid with the rat in his pants and your bandwidth bill for that month is $14,539.00.

Despite having worked at a streaming media dot-com, I am very suspicious of internet broadcasting as anything but a high-value/high-cost medium. As long as it's you and your three friends, it works just fine, but anything over that and you basically need an Akamai contract, and those don't come cheap.

[David]

Sorta like the "vlog" trend that began several months ago.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Ye of little faith.

[JD Lasica]

Sorry, Sandy, but that's what the Big Media boys would like you to believe. Raven's been webcasting almost 24/7 for two years and his total recurring cost is $17 a month.

What is takes is not money, but *time.*

[Sandy]

JD-

Any figures on what Raven's audience is?

I've administered the freakin' servers. I know whereof I speak--as long as your audience is limited, it's fine. But the slashdot effect is bad enough on a regular server; for a video stream, you'll need BitTorrent or some other way of distributing the content, or an Akamai contract. The only advantage over your local cable access channel is that your audience can be global. That's a pretty big advantage if your audience is small but distributed. If it's large, you're going to run into trouble, and it will cost you a lot more than $17/mo.

But don't take my word for it, go get an account and mirror some of the funny videos, like the Star Wars kid, that go around the web. Read the part of the contract about the prices for that burstable bandwidth.

[JD Lasica]

Raven gets 5,000 to 12,000 viewers a day, with a high of 17,000 one sun-splashed day during spring break. So far he hasn't been hit with any surcharge bills.

[Sandra]

Garden DIY