Over the past few weeks, I, like many others I’m sure, have been continuously let down by the weather forecast. They say it’ll be nice one day and rain the next and inevitably the exact opposite seems to occur. Still, we have had an abundance of unpleasant days and rainy weather. Yesterday, it even hailed several inches in parts of Northern New Jersey. What?!?! So, Saturday afternoon as the rain came down and my plans to attend a BBQ were thwarted, I had to find some piece of mind. Thank you Ustream.tv.
For the past few years, I have made time each and every summer to attend one of America’s great music festivals. As some of you know, Bonnaroo is the biggest and in its 8th year, continues to attract many of the biggest and best artists to that lovely little farm in Manchester, Tennesee. While I didn’t think twice about making the trek down south, as I sat home over the weekend doing what I do to stay out of the rain, I couldn’t help but wonder: what if I was there? What was I missing? Yeah, I could wait to read reviews and see pictures as they hit the web over the following days, but I wanted instant gratification. I could have gone without it, that is until one of my friend’s told me about Ustream, a new service that allows users to stream video content directly over the internet. Apparently its been around a few months, streaming anything from user-created content to top news programs from major networks like CBS and ABC. But the tipping point that led to lots of people being introduced to Ustream—myself included—happened just this weekend.
Ustream.tv is unlike similar services though, as far as I know. Because of its wondrous iPhone application, users can stream anything from just about anywhere. They don’t have to be plugged in, so to speak. While I can’t quite praise the video quality of what I was able to watch, the sound wasn’t half bad. And best of all, it was all happening live. I heard it as they heard it, give or take a few second delay. Though it doesn’t compare to actually being there, it was pretty exciting. And I wasn’t alone. Ustream uses a flash player that displays how many other viewers are currently watching the same stream. On Sunday night, as I watched Phish play out the last set of the festival, some 4,000 other viewers were tuned in to the same channel as me. On top of that, at least two other iPhones were simultaneously streaming the show via Ustream, though they didn’t have quite the audience.
I’m sure some sort of copyright laws were broken in the live broadcasts from the festival. So while I can’t condone it, I don’t feel any remorse for using it. Ustream is an awesome service and I’m glad I found out about it when I did. Last but not least, I’d like to extend a thank you to the guy holding his phone up in the air for all that time. If I had been there, I can’t say I would have done the same.
By Steven Rose
