U2be: If you can’t go first, go big?
26 October, 2009
Last night Youtube streamed a live U2 concert from the Rosebowl in California. You can still see the recorded HD stream, which has great quality. The playist can be found here. During the live show, an integrated Twitter widget displayed comments from Twitter that were marked #U2, adding an extra layer of interactivity, which was, though hardly innovative, still nice.
PR machine
So, why is YouTube’s PR machine all over this event? We’ve seen enough live webcasts before, right? The truth is, Youtube is far behind in the live-streaming video space. Youtube effectively owns the short video clip segment online, but since they have been bought by Google, have seen innovation focus primarily on advertising formats.
Laggard
In the meantime Hulu ate Youtube’s lunch and became the destination for TV content. And on the Live streaming side, a rapidly-evolving niche industry for live streams have overtaken Youtube and made live broadcasting an everyday part of most bands’ digital arsenal. Hell, even Mariah Carey’s already selling tickets to her concert webcast, which you can watch on your cellphone for $10. Even in 1997 (that’s 12 years ago, folks) fans could already watch a live U2 show from Boston on the MSN Hosted U2 Popmart site.
Go Big.
We get the point, though: YouTube wasn’t first. So they went big, and got U2, arguably the biggest live band on the planet, doing a good rock show. Not that this live stream is going to shock the world. It was served without any technical issues, but no-one is going to be impressed by that. And, I thought that these days bands only made money on live concerts, so seems kind of weird that the largest touring band in the world gives its last profitable product away for free online. Apparently it’s worth money to Youtube to try and get a reputation as a live destination before it’s too late.
Global value
We’ll see if youtube manages to squeeze itself into a content category that it has left lying aside for too long. No deal details were disclosed, but you can bet this has cost them. The real question is if Youtube will get the PR value out of it that they were aiming for. For the worldwide audience, the real value seems to be somewhere else. Watching the live show, about every third comment on the Twitter stream was in Spanish or Portuguese. This suggests that the value for events like this may be primarily in places (unlike Boston) where U2 doesn’t show up every six months. Uno, dos, tres, etc.
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