IBM Video Streaming

Streaming Video Blog

Get product updates, tips for video, news on industry
events and discover trends about live streaming,
video production and video on-demand.

Inform, Educate and Inspire Your Team With Streaming Video

Written by in Tips & Tutorials on

It’s no secret that U.S. businesses are experiencing an engagement crisis. A recent study revealed that 70 percent of American workers are not actively engaged or are actively disengaged, leading to approximately $500 billion in lost productivity.

So, what’s an organization to do? Raise salaries? Increase benefits? Offer more vacation? Not necessarily.

A closer look shows that what’s missing from employees’ lives is engagement. 72 percent don’t understand their companies’ strategies, and 64 percent would like to hear from leadership more often.

That’s where live video comes in.

To find out how, join us on June 11 for our next webinar, Using Video to Inform, Educate and Inspire Your Team. You’ll learn the secrets of successful CEOs for

  • Crafting an effective internal communications strategy
  • Using video to share knowledge and empower employees
  • Producing effective internal video communications

Reserve your spot now

Gain New Customers Through Multichannel Live Video Engagement

Written by in Tips & Tutorials on

In a marketplace that becomes noisier and more crowded every day, marketers are looking for new ways to engage customers for their products and services.

In the search for new ways to connect, many marketers are turning to an old-school medium for inspiration: television. The average American spends 34 hours each week watching TV, and live events such as the Super Bowl consistently attract audiences of 100,000 or more.

Today’s customers not only crave real-time content, but they also want a seat at the table — the chance to interact and take part in the event as it’s happening.

Ustream delivers on both counts, as detailed in our white paper Gaining New Customers Through Multichannel Live Video Engagement. Download a copy to learn

  • How Martha Stewart used online video to launch a new brand of home paint, attracting 80,000 viewers who watched for an average of 10 minutes each
  • How HBO promoted the DVD box set of “True Blood” through live online video — and used LiveAd to grow the event’s audience to 135,000
  • How iStrategyLabs created a live video campaign to help a small ale brand improve its brand engagement, resulting in sales that exceeded the company’s annual goal by 13–14 percent

Download Gaining New Customers Through Multichannel Live Video Engagement now

What Should Your Organization’s Leader Care About The Most?

Written by in Tips & Tutorials on

Forty years ago, the vast majority (83%) of a business’s market value was invested in tangible assets such as currency, equipment, land, and other property. Today, 84% of the market value of a business comes directly from its people:

  • their knowledge and skills
  • the services they provide
  • the products they build
  • the intellectual property they create

People represent the greatest investment and the largest expense of most organizations. Leaders must find and develop and retain the people they need, lead those people through the inevitable tough times that arise, and build an organization that is diverse and ready to meet the constant changes and challenges of the 21st Century. This is what keeps your CEO awake at night.

To be effective, today’s leaders must communicate effectively with the people they lead. No matter the worker’s age, education, or role within the organization, the more they know about the organization’s strategy, challenges, values, culture, and other attributes, the more engaged they are and the more they can contribute. Even more importantly, the more they WANT to contribute.

We hope that you will join Ustream on Wednesday, May 27 at 2 PM Eastern / 11 AM Pacific as we kick off a series of webinars that will:

  • Examine the value of effective communications within organizations
  • Outline the risks and results of a failure to communicate
  • Discuss examples of successful communicators and
  • Give you guidelines and practical advice on how to improve your organization’s internal communications

Register for the May 27 webinar: 3 Things CEOs Worry About the Most and How Communications Can Help”

Engage! Using Live Streaming Video to Build Employee Involvement

Written by in Video Trends & Studies on

Researchers from Deloitte recently asked more than 2,500 business and HR leaders to rate the urgency of numerous business issues, ranging from workforce capability to diversity and inclusion. No less than 79 percent of respondents rated the issue of employee retention and engagement as “urgent” or “important.”

And how are they doing on that front? Not so great, according to a separate survey by Gallup:

An alarming 70% of American workers are not showing up to work committed to delivering their best performance, and this has serious implications for the bottom line of individual companies and the U.S. economy as a whole.

What’s a CEO to do?

Smart leaders are realizing that, if employees are going to be engaged in their work, they need a direct line to top management. From the mailroom to the boardroom, employees need to know the organization’s mission, they need to know what success looks like, and they need to know that management cares — and they don’t want to read about it in an email.

That’s where live streaming video comes in.

Live streaming video offers employees real-time engagement with top leadership, whether those leaders are delivering prepared presentations or answering questions off the cuff at a virtual town hall. It builds a personal bridge that can fuel a whole new attitude toward the organization and the employee’s role within it.

Take a look at what Ustream client Zuora did when its employee base grew to span across nine time zones. By taking the company’s weekly meetings online via live video, Founder & CEO Tien Tzuo was able to bring Zuora’s workforce “under one virtual roof,” where employees could interact and ask questions in real time. “Ustream has been a big part of helping us keep that small company feel,” says Tzuo. “[It] allows us to create a really rich, interactive experience.”

How can live streaming video help you create a more engaged workforce? Learn more from by registering for our webinar “Business Use Cases for Live Video Streaming” here.

Aberdeen Research: Video Is Key to Rocking the “Hidden Sales Cycle”

Written by in Video Trends & Studies on

aberdeen img

How can video impact sales before a potential customer even talks to a sales rep?

That was the question we answered in our most recent live webinar, featuring guest presenter Maribeth Ross, Chief Content Officer, Marketing Effectiveness and Strategy of The Aberdeen Group.

In “The Impact of Video on the Hidden Sales Cycle,” Maribeth explored the new role being played by content marketing in attracting new customers and the unique advantages that video offers in building those relationships.

Click here to watch the full webinar.

Here are some of our key takeaways from Maribeth’s presentation:

  • Today’s buyers hold more power than ever before. They’re hyper-informed, they’re self-educated, and by the time they speak with a sales rep, many of them have already made up their minds.
  • The “Hidden Sales Cycle” represents the very top of the sales funnel, when buyers are still in “research mode.”
  • Content marketing enables businesses to reach and build relationships with buyers in the Hidden Sales Cycle, by answering their questions and providing the information they’re after.
  • 95 percent of Best-in-Class marketers are using video as part of their content marketing mix.
  • Companies using video see a 4.8 percent average website conversion rate, compared to 2.9 percent for non–video users.
  • Companies using video demonstrate a 19 percent lower average cost-per-customer acquisition — $93 versus $115 for companies not using video.
  • There is a 65 percent difference in the number of deals closed between companies who use video and those who do not.

For more information about how video impacts the Hidden Sales Cycle, download the Aberdeen research paper.

The SMBs Heard ‘Round the World

Written by in Customer Stories on

zuora logo

Not so long ago, your typical small business was a neighborhood mom-and-pop shop that served a small, local clientele.

Fast forward to 2014, and small businesses are just as likely as IBM to have a truly global presence, with team members and customers located around the world.

With a worldwide footprint comes the need to communicate with audiences thousands of miles away, which can be a challenge for lean-and-mean companies. That’s where Ustream comes in.

Ustream enables thousands of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to realize the benefits of live streaming video. Our clients include some of the most innovative, dynamic SMBs around — businesses like Foster City, California–based Zuora.

Founded in 2007 by three guys in a tiny office, Zuora enables businesses to launch and monetize subscription products and services through its subscription management software. Today the company employs more than 400 professionals at its headquarters in California and at satellite offices throughout North America, Europe, and China.

As you can imagine, managing a team whose locations span nine time zones can be quite a challenge, especially for a small business. How do you keep all your employees engaged and aligned with your mission while still keeping a small-company feel?

Zuora’s leadership found their solution in live streaming video, provided by Ustream. The company began broadcasting its weekly meetings, enabling employees around the world to offer input and ask questions in real time.

But that was just the beginning: Now the company uses Ustream live video to evangelize their brand message. Last year the broadcast of their Subscribed conference in San Francisco attracted more than 20,000 viewers. “That blew away our expectations,” says CMO Brian Bell. “We never expected to get that many watching it live and engaging in the conversation. In fact, it was so successful that when we did the event again in London, we also chose Ustream.”

Read more about Zuora and check out their Ustream channel.

Case Study: TWiT.tv

Written by in Customer Stories on

white twit logo

From its humble beginnings with a single podcast, TWiT.tv is now poised to become “the CNBC of tech” — powered by its partnership with Ustream.

Since 2005, the shows of TWiT.tv have provided news, commentary, help, how-to and perspective on the latest trends in digital tech from seasoned experts and journalists. Beginning with a single podcast called This Week in Tech (the source of the acronym TWiT), the online broadcaster now offers more than 20 other top-ranked shows, including This Week In Google, Tech News Today, Green Tech Today, Macbreak Weekly, Windows Weekly, The Daily Giz Wiz and many more.

“Soon after we started the podcast, I could see that video was getting the lion’s share of attention,” recalls Leo Laporte, founder, owner and president of the Internet television channel. “We set up a webcam and started streaming video of me recording the podcast.” But even in 2005, Laporte foresaw a grander future for streaming video.

“I envisioned a time when IPTV [Internet Protocol television] would take off, when people wouldn’t care where they got their TV from traditional networks or Internet broadcasters,” he remarks.

Today, TWiT.tv produces 30 shows and owns a 3,000-square-foot studio in Petaluma, California. Viewers can enjoy the content live as it is broadcast or via download; however, Laporte notes that the live broadcasts are the secret behind TWiT’s special brand of success.

“I came from live TV and radio,” Laporte explains, “so I know firsthand that there’s an immediacy, an urgency, an energy around live broadcasts. Because we’re live, our shows are better — they feel live, even if you’re watching a download.”

Ustream has been a partner of TWiT.tv since its earliest broadcasts. “Ustream is our oldest partner, and it’s the default selection on our live stream home page,” says Laporte. “Our audience is very tech savvy, and they come with the expectation that our broadcast will be flawless. It’s so important that the distinction between Internet broadcasters and ‘real’ broadcasters disappears — we ARE real broadcasters — and Ustream enables us to deliver a real broadcast experience.”

In addition to uncompromising quality, Ustream has also delivered on customer service. “We were very specific about what we wanted,” Laporte notes, “and Ustream has been great about helping us do livestreaming our way. For example, we didn’t want preroll ads — our advertising is a part of the show — and they’ve worked with us every step of the way.”

As livestreaming becomes more popular and accessible to more content creators, Laporte sees his vision for IPTV closer than ever to becoming reality. “Newer televisions are capable of showing IPTV,” he explains. “One day soon, picking up the remote will be the same process for watching network TV as for accessing an Internet show. Then IPTV will be a reality … and TWiT.tv will be right there.”

To learn more, check out the TWiT.tv case study video or download our white paper to learn how you can integrate video into your communication strategy.

Sharing Hope Through Live Streaming Video

Written by in Customer Stories on

Climate Reality Pic

Sure, we’ve all heard the bad news about climate change: it’s here, it’s huge, it’s devastating, and it’s not going away anytime soon.

Ever wonder whether there’s any good news around this global phenomenon?

Well, there is. On September 16–17, 2014, the Climate Reality Project broadcasted live streaming video on Ustream for 24 hours straight, sharing 24 reasons to be hopeful about the future of our planet. 24 Reasons for Hope is the fourth event in the Project’s annual 24 Hours of Reality series dedicated to sparking action on the issue of climate change.

Each hour of the event, hosted on the Climate Reality Channel, focused on a different reason to be hopeful about our future and encompassed presentations from Project Chairman Al Gore, town-hall meetings, musical performances from acts such as Linkin Park and Jack Johnson, and other features. Among the 24 reasons presented were:

  • Renewables are growing in use and getting cheaper all the time. (Hour 1)
  • Remarkable progress is being made in energy storage. (Hour 11)
  • Key financial institutions are realizing that dirty energy is a bad investment (Hour 21).

The 24 Reasons for Hope channel on Ustream drew more than 16 million views — 8 million unique views — in countries around the globe.

To learn more about the event and to access recordings from the live video stream, visit 24hoursofreality.org.