New York-based JW Player, which provides an online video streaming platform for content creators, owners and distributors, is adding livestreaming capability to its batch of cloud-based turnkey products. The integrated product, the vendor said, is as easy to use as Facebook Live and YouTube Live.
The advantage for online video provider clients is that JW Player gives them much more direct insights into their audiences’ viewing behaviors, along with a number of other integrated tools to better control how they stream, who they target and what devices their videos can stream to. It also allows them to pull in revenues from their streaming services much more directly – whether using ad-supported or subscriber-based business models, which are both supported by JW Player.
“The ability to monetize live streaming without handing over audience or revenue streams to aggregators is new and exciting for both brands and marketers seeking more innovative ways to capture consumer time,” said Chris Mahl, president and chief revenue officer at JW Player, in a company release.
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In keeping with other turnkey-type streaming products that JW Player has launched this year – including an app creator that enables its customers to build iOS and Android apps in hours rather than weeks – the “Click, Shoot, Live” product offers a simplified process and interface that automates many of the functions required to set up and launch a live stream. According to the vendor, customers simply create a live stream, enter details about the event, connect a source stream, and then launch the live stream to their viewers.
KelbyOne, an online multimedia training provider, and touchlab, an Android platform development and design company, are among the first users of JW Player’s livestream product.
For larger OTT providers and traditional TV broadcasters or distributors that need instant scale, vendors such as Verizon Digital Media Services and Ericsson also launched cloud-based, relatively simplified livestreaming solutions this year. But for smaller providers, corporate video efforts and mid- to large-sized enterprises that are adding video streaming to their portfolios (such as traditional magazines and newspapers), JW Player and similar vendors such as Ooyala are rolling out managed livestreaming and app creation solutions that are much more cost-effective for these organizations.