A Color TV Is More Alive Than a Black and White TV. What’s Livelier? Live Streaming.
Hey Aluxers, what interesting times we’re living in. This article was a long time coming and now with US Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasia-Cortez going live and dominating Twitch Aluxers, here’s a little secret: do you know what are the most valuable currencies of the future?
Let’s pause here and wait for the answer, while you can take a guess in the comments below.
3…
2…
1…
And the answer is: “crypto, time and attention.” Take a second and think about that.
Today we are going to talk about the 3rd currency, attention, and why live streaming is the world-wide bank of attention.
You’re going to learn a lot from this article so stick around!
Welcome to Alux.com – the place where future billionaires come to get inspired. If you’re not subscribed yet, you’re missing out.
If you want to do your attention a service and skip a long read when you can, then here’s our YouTube upload for this topic:
With that streamed, we’re starting the list with:
1
Attention Is King
Let’s take a minute and explain why this is true.
If you want to talk to people, you need their attention, obviously.
Are you guys familiar with the term “content noise”?
Have you ever spent a long time on social media or YouTube and felt like you haven’t actually watched anything? You were just scrolling your time away into oblivion.
That’s an effect of content noise. It’s when people or companies are posting so much irrelevant content that the attention span of the average viewer gets lower and lower.
The longer this goes on, the more attention becomes more valuable.
So, the platform that manages to grab the most attention will ultimately be at the top.
Right now there is an average of 2.5 million people who watch twitch every day. You could say those are rookie numbers compared to Instagram’s 500 million, but there is a very big catch here, and that is ..
2
Long Term Engagement
Yes, there are 500 million people on Instagram every day. But what are those people doing? They scroll around, double tapping cute puppies and racing through stories like there’s no tomorrow.
There is little to no engagement, and that’s where live streaming really shines.
You have people watching the same channel for hours at a time, engaging with the content creator and the community.
And the level of engagement is so high it even spawned its own identity, in twitch chat.
If you spent time on twitch, you know what we’re talking about. Ez claps, ez wins, pogchamps and spamming emotes may seem like an obnoxious way for people to interact with each other but it demonstrates an irrefutable truth.
There’s a community that loves to engage and it has the right infrastructure to do so.
3
Personal Connection
The next point on why live streaming is the new color TV is the personal connection people get with the content creator.
It’s simply unmatched. And as we talked previously, in a world so full of content noise, being able to really connect with the people you’re following is extremely valuable.
One could say that you can connect with people on YouTube as well, I mean you guys have been trying to connect with me for years… but again, live streaming comes with something extra that YouTube lost over the years.
4
Candid Experience
Unedited, uncut, unfiltered. Or maybe filtered a bit by Terms and Services but still.
That’s why vlogging is such a big part of YouTube right now, and it’s also why it’s getting too noisy.
Creators realized that people love watching them in “quote” “ real life situations” sooo… they started to over-exaggerate their daily life, losing the candid experience over time.
With live streaming however, what you get is what you get, and people actually really enjoy that.
Here’s a little fun fact for you, remember Big Brother, the TV show?
It’s currently on it’s 22th season. If anything, they were ahead of the curve since the 2000’s.
5
Goes Hand in Hand With Video Games
Now why is this such a big deal?
Video games have evolved over the years, big time.
And we’re not talking about graphics, although the new “unreal engine” made us question reality.
No, we’re talking about something else. Right now, video games are the best way to bring people together from different backgrounds. Drake playing Fortnite with Ninja is one example, but let’s talk about the more recent one.
Like we mentioned in the intro, US Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasia-Cortez streamed a game of “Among Us” along with a bunch of high profile creators and streamers, just a couple of days ago.
The reason behind this live stream was to raise voting awareness and boooy… she did.
Her stream was the 3rd highest viewed stream ever, peaking at 400k viewers.
And like Philip DeFranco pointed out, when you consider the fact that the streamers she played with were also streaming themselves, the number is actually way, way higher.
We are big believers in video games dominating a lot of different markets in the future.
So much so, we secretly launched our gaming channel here on YouTube and we have a lot of great content planned for it. Think of it as Alux but for gaming and eSports.
If you agree with us, go over to alux.com/zd and join the community we’re building.
6
It’s the Natural Progression
When it comes to technology or how we connect with other people, there’s always the question of “what’s next”.
If you think about the natural progression of how we consume content, it looks like this:
Radio -> TV -> Youtube -> Live Streaming -> Augmented Reality.
Back in September, MKBHD did a video with Mark Zuckerberg where they talked about tech and what’s next. Mark said that augmented reality is definitely the place where we’re going, and it’s a pretty obvious route.
And if you think about it, even when Augmented Reality becomes a commodity, what are you going to do with it?
Correct, live stream it.
7
The Pandemic Proved Live Streaming Works in Business Too
How many events went from in person to live stream this year?
And if anything, they were cheaper to hold.
Online education is another area where live streaming was the solution and while the infrastructure wasn’t there, it still got some of the job done.
“That event could have been a live stream” is the new “that meeting could have been an email”.
During the Pandemic “Some People Are Discovering They Get Work From Home & They’ll Never Go Back“
8
It’s One Click Away
Here’s an interesting statistic.
In 2019, more people watched the live stream of the League of Legends Worlds than they watched the Super Bowl.
So what does this mean? For one, video games are outperforming traditional sports as means of entertainment, and we’re actually going to cover this on our gaming channel, so stay tuned for that one at alux.com/ZD.
But secondly, if you want to watch the Superbowl, you have to actually be physically in the US to even be able to access one of the links. That, or you could use a VPN, like NordVPN, one of our sponsors. Yes, we know, perfect segway.
If unrestricted internet is your thing, go to alux.com/vpn and grab the deal!
Ok back to the topic. Twitch is a great example here.
They were smart enough to make their platform similar to a TV network with different categories and made it easy for people to jump from game to game or find new streamers.
Plus it’s free.
9
Very Low Barrier of Entry
Technically it’s easier to get into live streaming than it is editing videos for Youtube and there are a lot of people streaming all sorts of different content right now.
And possibly one of the coolest examples we can give is the story of Brox, a Maori wood carver and streamer from New Zealand.
There’s something very special in being able to watch live a wood carver from the other side of the world and interact with him at the same time.
And Brox’s setup consists of a phone strapped by 2 ropes on a piece of wood. Talk about a low barrier of entry.
His stream was even crashed by Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand.
Speaking of New Zealand, they had one of the strictest lockdowns to combat Covid and now life there is slowly getting back to normal.
We talked more about what New Zealand does right in a dedicated video, which is a must watch.
10
Easier to Reach an Audience
What gives the most trust, a live Q&A or a scripted video?
A lot of people, from entrepreneurs to companies or creators, are finding it way easier to reach and connect with their audience via live streams.
It feels more like an open conversation and people tune it for that.
They like the feeling of just hanging out.
Ultimately, live streaming is the new era of communication and media.
It provides something that no other media channel can give, and that’s a sense of human connection with real time feedback.
Question
What do you think Aluxers? Is live streaming just a fad or we’ll see more and more people going live?
