Is Google Uptime The Next Big Thing in Live Event Broadcast?

Is Google Uptime The Next Big Thing in Live Event Broadcast?

A Google-funded startup just released a YouTube video party app called “Uptime” that could be the beginning of something very useful for eventprofs.

Last week, Google’s startup incubator, Area 120, launched a social video app for iPhone called Uptime. Weirdly, there’s no Android App yet and no announcements have been made to confirm that there will be one. Uptime lets users find, share and watch YouTube videos with friends, whatever their location, and comment in real-time.

Essentially, it’s the online equivalent of getting your buddies round to watch a DVD except you don’t have to be in the same room or have a DVD. For now, the app is only available in the US, so you do still have to be in the same country. Right now, the available features are quite limited. It’s a view-only platform so there’s no ability to live-stream. Users can only search for and watch YouTube videos that already exist. Users can share a link to their viewing session via social channels.

There’s currently a lot of speculation around what the future holds for Uptime. Users seem to be screaming out for the ability to live-stream from the app so that’s a possibility. We think it’s more likely that Google will let the app grow organically for a while, then cherry-pick the best features and add them to YouTube.

One way eventprofs could already benefit from Uptime is in its ability to take prerecorded content and turn that content into a live event. When you release new video content, instead of simply posting it to YouTube, schedule a time when you will broadcast that video to an Uptime channel. This could be a handy feature for rebroadcasting keynote presentations and webinars across different time zones.

If live streaming is added later on, or if Uptime’s features make their way to YouTube live streams, there will be an instant win for event organizers. While there are many different options for creating live streams with built-in commenting, it’s a bonus having the features easily to hand and for free. Being part of the Google ecosystem also means that almost everyone already has an account.

The addition of more live features could make Uptime a viable backchannel for events. With Twitter finally beefing up its live game and Twitch weighing in as a serious contender, this will be an interesting area to watch.

While we don’t even know if Uptime will ever amount to more than its current form, its mere existence hints at changes in the way people watch and share online video, and to a broader degree, how users are favoring mobile video over other forms of content. We’ll be keeping an eye on this app. It will be interesting to see where it goes.

Images Powered by Shutterstock

Thank you for your referral

Please list your name and e-mail and we’ll contact you shortly

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.