Everyone’s agreed on one thing, video is the future of web and live streaming will form a significant chunk of that.
The current contenders are Facebook Live, YouTube Live, Twitch and Periscope. Twitch was among the first to establish itself as a streaming hub, but it did so by carving a niche for itself in gaming. YouTube Live came later and has found a fair amount of success. A great many events and even sports are streamed live on YouTube.
Facebook Live is a relatively new entrant but it seems to have picked up more steam than the rest of the services combined. In fact, it seems to be the platform of choice for advertisers and publishers alike.
Looking closer at the services, it’s easy to see why.
Twitch: It’s all about gaming
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We’ll start with Twitch. As mentioned earlier, Twitch established a niche for itself as a source of all things gaming. If there’s a game you want to see streamed, you’ll find it on Twitch.
Streamers earn money when people subscribe to their stream, via ads and through donations. Twitch is a great place for streamers, but by definition, it’s niche makes it less suited to a larger audience.
Periscope: Limited audience
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Periscope is in an odd spot. It’s not really carved a niche for itself yet, but it doesn’t have much going for it other than the vague association with Twitter. Publishers have found success with Periscope, which is why it can’t be dismissed outright, but compared to the likes of Facebook and YouTube, it’s among the also-rans.
The main problem with Periscope is reach. Twitter has 313 million active users, a number that pales in comparison to Facebook and YouTube’s billion strong user base. Further diminishing Periscope’s reach is the fact that only a fraction of Twitter users actually uses it. As of 2015, the total number of users stands at 10 million, with 2 million daily broadcasts. These numbers are huge, but insignificant in the larger scheme of things.
YouTube Live: Who’s my audience again?
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YouTube Live is an extension of YouTube’s video platform and so far, is Facebook Live’s only real competitor. Its main advantage over others is reach, but it’s still not in the same league as Facebook. It’s estimated that YouTube has about a billion monthly active users(around 60-70 percent of Facebook’s total) and about 800 million users watch videos daily.
YouTube is a great platform for watching and streaming video to be sure, but it lacks the cohesion that a social networking platform like Facebook offers. You can watch a live stream, but that’s all you’re there for. Sharing with other users isn’t so easy, you can’t tag your friends or share it to your favourite group as easily and so on.
YouTube limits your interaction to that video. You can share it after the fact, but it’s still not as personal as Facebook’s offering.
Another major issue with YouTube Live is targeting. For advertises and publishers, targeting users is very hard, while Facebook works as a news feed of sorts and can push content as they see fit (they prioritise live videos in people’s news feeds). YouTube can’t do that. On YouTube, people will only see what they’re subscribed to or what they stumble across on their home page.
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Anyone who’s had their eyes open will be aware of the fact that everything is shifting to mobile. Unfortunately for YouTube, only about 50 percent of their videos are seen on mobile devices. Facebook, again, has a lead on this front, with 75 percent of videos watched, including Live video, on mobile devices.
YouTube also doesn’t have as much data about its users as Facebook. They use cookies, so they can guess at who you are, but Facebook, which requires a login to use, knows who you are. It’s an important distinction that fine tunes targeting and advertisement like nothing else.
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To add to all of these above problems, publishers and advertisers claim that YouTube’s charges are higher than Facebook’s.
Facebook Live is new to live-streaming, but it has the ability to leverage the information it’s collected on users to provide the most compelling live-streaming platform for publishers and advertisers. Coupled with a more focused approach to the medium, and a social network that encompasses the entirety of the online world, it does seem like Facebook will simply waltz away with the live-streaming audience.