Facebook debuts live chat pages, Ustream live video
Facebook’s new Live Stream Box is a cut-and-paste HTML widget that can be added to a website to let Facebook users chat alongside a live event. Updates to the stream post quickly and then wash off the screen, to maximize the live-event feel.
In the example shown below, Mashable founder and poster boy Pete Cashmore has set up a Live Stream Box next to a video window.
At the same time, Facebook and Ustream have integrated Ustream’s live video technology so that it will play within a Facebook page. But Ustream won’t initially be available on regular people’s pages. The initial collaboration between Ustream and Facebook will be limited to pages that tout brands or entertainment artists, such as the Jonas Brothers shown here.
Why won’t Ustream be available for everyone on Facebook? Because Ustream can’t support that many sessions, and because Ustream custom-builds the player page. There’ll be a submission process for people and companies who want to be able to stream live. Ustream will choose those it wants to work with. There are two flavors of custom-built Ustream: An ad-free version that requires a development fee, and an ad-supported version. Ustreams sample page for the Jonas Brothers, above, calls out the headers (the area labeled a) and banners (labeled b) that can be customized.
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About the Author, Paul Boutin
Paul (paul@venturebeat.com) covers Apple & the iPhone, social networks & social media, digital music & video, and any crazy Internet story. Paul wrote and edited for Valleywag from 2006-2008, after several years with Wired magazine and Slate. He writes regularly for The New York Times' technology section and sometimes for Wired and The Wall Street Journal. He studied computer science at MIT in the early 1980s, and worked as a software developer and network administrator for 15 years before becoming a professional writer. Follow him on Twitter at @paulboutin, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.
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