Everybody wants their own talk show ...

There's been more live broadcasting of streaming video in the blogosphere lately. As networks become more robust, I expect that video will continue to drive demand for fatter pipes, better end-user devices and an always-on expectation  - unwired. The company YouCastr has a beta site focused on sports where you can try your hand at color analysis and play-by-play action. I have deep respect for broadcast journalists who have had years of education and training to master their art. However, on the web, perfection is the enemy of the "good enough."  People are getting used to low video & audio quality, unpolished performance and scatter-brain content - as long as it's funny, it gets popular. It also quickly dies away, what happened to my "Don't Taze me" guy?  Last year at one our kid's football games we began recording the games and streamed them with a play-by-play performance by one of our high school alums. It was actually pretty good. You can see a good example of a decent podcast from YouCastr here. The site has many aspiring "webcasters" and I find if you have someone who really likes their topic, like sports, they tend to do a decent job. I don't think John Madden has to worry yet.

My only big issue is how do you make money with this? Even though there is a lot of interest in live format with rumors that Yahoo wants to buy Ustream, I still don't see the business model. Last time I checked Ustream, they only had 160 viewers from the entire Internet watching TPS Radio. Oh Microsoft was talking to Ustream too, maybe they'll get both and they can get a talk show of their own.