IBM Video Streaming

Secure Virtual Event Platform Enhancements

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We’re excited to announce a new solution for Virtual Events that allows customers to host events online on the highly secure and reliable IBM Enterprise Video Streaming platform. This secure virtual event platform provides an out-of-the-box solution for creating customizable event websites, replacing a lot of manual work and dramatically reducing lead times.

With the new Enterprise Video Streaming – Virtual Event solution with Microsite, customers can now easily create a fully functioning event website with built-in registration and event management capabilities in just a few minutes. This virtual event product can be used again and again for events of all sizes, easily scaling up or down depending on the scope of each subsequent event. Each virtual event has a start and end date, can span one or many days, and can support one or many online stages (live channels) at the same time. The new solution builds on IBM Video Streaming’s existing expertise in channel-based live video streaming. 

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Live Playlists for Simulated Live Events Are Better Than Ever

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Simulated Live, Simulive or Semi Live – whichever name you prefer, refers to an online digital event that is broadcasted to a live audience watching and interacting in real time, but the video presentations they see are actually pre-recorded.

From the attendee experience, a simulated live event looks just like a live presentation that is scheduled to occur at a set time of day and can be added to their calendar ahead of time like any upcoming live event. If an attendee logs in late or after the presentation has started, they will not be able to rewind to watch the content that they missed from the beginning because the event appears to be happening in real-time – and in some ways it is! In fact, some argue that simulated live events can be more engaging because the speakers can actually focus on actively reaching out with participants continually throughout the event to keep them engaged. And all sessions are automatically archived so attendees who miss any portion will be able to watch again on-demand after the event.

There are many reasons why you might consider pre-recording the video presentations for your upcoming event ranging from cost considerations to risk avoidance to speaker preferences and availability. These include:

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Live Monitoring for Virtual Event Organizers

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While an online event is in-motion, most organizers aren’t fully aware of the health of the live stream and are only alerted if there is a massive connection failure. IBM Video Streaming’s new Live Monitoring Tool helps event organizers see what’s really happening in granular detail so that proactive measures can be taken at the first sign of any issue, even if it’s only impacting a smaller portion of the audience. The additional analytics insights also help to extract business value. Going beyond what historical analysis offer, this gives organizations the ability to inspect and analyze data in order to quickly respond to enhance performance or “right the ship”.

While IBM Video Streaming has long had an impressive array of real-time analytics, the new console allows customers to monitor live streaming events to an incredibly granular degree. This includes tools to investigate issues to support real-time decision making, such as validating how widespread buffering issues might be and check the overall stream health. This use case can help determine if a report of a viewer experiencing buffering issues is an isolated problem associated with the viewer’s connection or if it points to a larger problem possibly due to connection issues at the broadcaster’s side.

Read on to learn more about the real time monitoring features available to all customers and supports multiple channels all broadcasting at the same time.  

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Virtual Events for Open or Private VIP Only Audiences

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virtual events and online conferences for VIP audiences

Virtual events are a requirement for companies big and small in today’s business culture. While IBM Video Streaming has been streaming online conferences for many years, we’ve added several new features to our Enterprise Video Streaming platform to help event managers easily spin up new virtual events (or webcasts) at any time, and customize them for specific audiences. 

A Virtual Event has a pre-registration phase, a live phase, and a post-event phase where archive recordings are available. IBM Video Streaming makes running frequent events easy across all these phases. 

This article explains the virtual event attendee experience and event management features within the IBM Enterprise Video Streaming platform. It discusses utilizing viewer tracking functionality to track who is watching, going over what type of data can be extracted. The piece concludes by reviewing the Q&A module, which adds additional opportunities for employee engagement and valuable organization facing feedback.

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Live and On-Demand Playlists for video playback

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One of IBM Video Streaming’s most important features is getting a facelift!

Many of our customers use IBM Video Streaming to support simulated live streaming events using the live playlist feature. Event managers love this capability as it allows them to set up fully produced broadcasts without the need for encoders or live production staff. Additionally, content owners create dynamic playlists associated with on-demand content. As of today, we’ve combined the live and on-demand platform capabilities for playlists to more closely unify the experience for broadcasters and content creators. Now, there is a single place to manage all types of playlists.

Playlists can be useful for event managers who want to loop live broadcasts after finishing the run of show, or fill a channel with continuous programming leading up to a broadcast, or run a live event entirely consisting of pre-recorded content.

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Brandlive Surpasses Monumental 8,000 Livestreamed Events and Unveils Partnership with IBM at its Annual Customer Summit

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Brandlive Livestreamed Events - see the webinar on retail marketing inspirationBrandlive, the leading live video platform for brands and retail marketing today announced that it has livestreamed over 8,000 events, as part of a partnership with IBM Watson Media. With this milestone, Brandlive confirms its position as the go-to resource for brands and retailers looking to interact with their audiences for sales enablement, marketing and commerce events.

In today’s saturated digital landscape, brands need an innovative method to cut through the noise and engage with their customers. By leveraging live video, companies can bolster their marketing strategies to more effectively interact with their audiences and foster relationships in real-time.

Brandlive empowers top brands like Adidas, GoPro, eBay, and Cabela’s to better communicate with their audiences by offering customers real-time access to experts, influencers, and executives. With 8,000 livestreamed events, it is clear that brands are harnessing live video and understand its myriad advantages: live video is more engaging, faster to produce, and drives more sales than recorded video.

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Video streaming as a business tool? Casey Zeman will show you how

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Today’s guest blogger is Hanna Brooks Olsen, an Editorial and Marketing Specialist at creativeLIVE. In a previous life, she was a social media manager.

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At this point, most community managers have social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook nailed — but few businesses are using streaming video to build their audience and drive sales. Author and strategist Casey Zeman is out to change that.

In his upcoming three-day course on CreativeLive (free to watch while it airs live!), Casey will walk you through some of the basics of streaming video for business.

What you’ll learn:

  • Equipment basics that help make your videos better and your production smoother
  • Why streaming video communities matter (though, to be honest, you probably already know this)
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