Written by Liz Gannes
Posted Tuesday, May 1, 2007 at 7:10 AM PT

 

Live-Streaming Fad Recast as Live-Remixing

We wouldn’t go so far as to say “great minds think alike,” but the similarity in conception and timing between two startups we recently met is disarming. Both Operator11 and Mogulus promise to take the next step forward for the fad of the moment, less-than-gripping live-streaming web video shows, by adding editing and remixing. And both will launch in the next couple weeks.

Both companies’ founders survived a generation of “netcasting” predating Justin.tv’s recent rocket to (relative) fame. Operator11 is essentially the second coming of Pseudo.com, the icon of dot-com excess (see old coverage); it is funded and founded by eccentric Pseudo founder Josh Harris. New York City-based Mogulus is a project of Max Haot, a veteran of video syndication platform Interactive Content Factory (ICF), acquired by MCI and still peddled by Verizon.

Though the sites differ in intent, they both are centered on web-based editing interfaces, where producers can coordinate multiple feeds of live streams. And they look to be a step up from Stickam’s chat rooms and UStream’s 24/7 unedited fuzzy footage. Of course, they’re not officially released yet (more on getting access to them below).

“Home theater was 10 years ago; now it’s home studio,” Operator11’s Harris said in the hallway of paidContent’s EconSM conference in Beverly Hills last Thursday. He wants to build a massive network of home studios that produce webcam stars (a.k.a. “operators”), who get elevated to a real studio in Hollywood if they earn enough viewers.

A cast of Operator11 studio operators wandered the halls of the conference last week conducting live shows and wearing bright red full-body outfits that resembled a spacesuit crossed with an oompa loompa costume. We’re not going to pretend to understand the high concept. (Example embedded below — volume kicks in after the beginning.)

Haot, on the other hand, wants to offer the tools for anyone to create “MyNN,” or personal newscasts a la CNN, with spliced-in clips, live feeds, graphics, and headlines. He’s raised $1.2 million in angel funding and hired 20 people to build out a very pretty looking Flex and Flash-based interface (see screenshot below).

Haot predicted in a phone call last week the current online emphasis on on-demand content would soon change to include much more live content.

Operator11 is set to launch May 5, though it is publicly accessible now. Mogulus will open a private beta May 10. Fifty NewTeeVee readers can get invites by being the first to email beta@mogulus.com.

Both companies hope to monetize using advertising, Operator11 through spots that operators earn points for including in their shows, and Mogulus for ads inserted into streams every 8 minutes (alternatively, customers could pay for an ad-free version).

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Comments & Trackbacks

  1. [...] NewTeeVee: Start-ups chase Live videRemixing, the next big video trend. [...]

    GigaOM » What’s On GigaNET on May 1st, 2007 at 7:17 am - Permalink
  2. [...] Does Great Job Streaming Our Conference Mogulus, a live streaming startup whose existence we were the first to report on back in May, launched yesterday at NewTeeVee Live. And crazily enough, on the day of its launch, [...]

    Mogulus Launches; Does Great Job Streaming Our Conference « NewTeeVee on November 15th, 2007 at 1:41 pm - Permalink
  3. [...] Signal at Live Video Startup Operator11 Operator11, a Hollywood-based live streaming startup (our coverage), has had repeated outages recently, as TechCrunch’s John Biggs complained this [...]

    No Signal at Live Video Startup Operator11 « NewTeeVee on December 6th, 2007 at 1:13 pm - Permalink
  4. [...] a Hollywood-based live streaming startup (our coverage), has had repeated outages recently, as TechCrunch’s John Biggs complained this [...]

    No Signal at Live Video Startup Operator11 teasered @ Feed UP !! on December 7th, 2007 at 10:52 am - Permalink
  5. [...] on the funding, but the amount is wrong, Haot said. Including the $1.2 million in angel funding we reported on last May, the New York City-based company has now raised $2.7 million in total funding, all [...]

    Mogulus Raises $1.5 Million « NewTeeVee on January 7th, 2008 at 10:40 am - Permalink
  6. It is extremely frustrating that Operaor11 has completely ignored its user based shows, not to mention the folks who tune in to those “operator” shows….

    So many truths, and untruths, have been spoken since November of 2007, that one has to really wonder what is fact and or fiction~! I will have to go on record as saying that whoever/whatever controls Operator11 should be completely ashamed at not letting people know what is going on….

    One moment things are ok, the next complete mess…Josh? You have the power, please get the will…we are people who love what you attempted to do….and we will gladly assist, but please stop ignoring…

    If you need my help as a host or moderator or information director…here is my email…geeze…to ignore will be the ultimate failure..

    nolimit24fjakadoofus@gmail.com

    OPERATOR11 you could be great but you could also become the extinct “dinosaur”…just let us know so we can move on or stick with the effort..thanks…

    Jim on February 19th, 2008 at 1:33 pm - Permalink
  7. [...] TechCrunch first wrote about the story, and our sources corroborate that figure. Mogulus had raised $1.2 million in seed funding in May of last year and another $1.5 million in January of this [...]

    Mogulus Gets $10M from Gannett « NewTeeVee on July 28th, 2008 at 8:14 am - Permalink

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