Winter Wind in a Forest

Last year I wrote about why booking too far in advance can be dangerous for your business, and this concept of margin so eloquently captures what I had recognized had been my problem: I was so booked up with clients

Just this week, Tumblr and Musical.ly joined the live video fray, launching new products just as details of Facebook’s spending more than $50 million on direct payments to creators primarily in live video emerged. It would not be hyperbole to say that everyone, from Google to Twitter to old-guard media companies, is currently making live video their top priority.Yet the human animal is ill-prepared for the droning feast of now-ness that live streaming delivers. Live products must do more to contextualize and direct what we are seeing and what creators are making.Using the current wave of live video products is like trying to make a thirty minute pop song using only a recorder: horribly tedious for creator and consumer alike. The hook is superficially appealing, but the length, repetition, lulls, lack of context, and general paucity of the tools mean even the best creators and media companies won’t stand a chance of making marginally watchable content.Most of the current thinking on live video is top-down. Like any good consumer tech product, the only way to succeed is thinking from the consumer’s point-of-view, not the advertisers’. Few platforms are doing that, blinded by the (legitimately substantial) profit live video dominance could deliver.Just this week, Tumblr and Musical.ly joined the live video fray, launching new products just as details of Facebook’s spending more than $50 million on direct payments to creators primarily in live video emerged. It would not be hyperbole to say that everyone, from Google to Twitter to old-guard media companies, is currently making live video their top priority.Yet the human animal is ill-prepared for the droning feast of now-ness that live streaming delivers. Live products must do more to contextualize and direct what we are seeing and what creators are making.Using the current wave of live video products is like trying to make a thirty minute pop song using only a recorder: horribly tedious for creator and consumer alike. The hook is superficially appealing, but the length, repetition, lulls, lack of context, and general paucity of the tools mean even the best creators and media companies won’t stand a chance of making marginally watchable content.

Most of the current thinking on live video is top-down. Like any good consumer tech product, the only way to succeed is thinking from the consumer’s point-of-view, not the advertisers’. Few platforms are doing that, blinded by the (legitimately substantial) profit live video dominance could deliver.