Written by Liz Gannes
Posted Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 5:00 AM PT

Mogulus Goes Generic: Now Called LiveStream

If you want to convey that you’re a generic vendor of live-streaming services, then sure, why not change your name to LiveStream? Just forgive us if, having known your company for two years with the quirky if ambiguously pronounced name Mogulus, we have a little trouble reconciling something so plain.

Anyways, LiveStream, as Mogulus now wants to be known, is refreshing its free service to be more simple and accessible, and letting it be known that it’s signed up more than 1,000 pro accounts — which start at $350 per month and include features such as monetization, analytics and HD — since launching in December. The company has 250,000 total producer accounts.

“We’ve been viewed as a bit too complicated,” LiveStream CEO Max Haot told us Monday. “Now you can sign up and go live in a single click.”

But more than competitive positioning, LiveStream plans to succeed by simply building a more stable business than other live streamers like Ustream and Justin.tv. The company has adopted aggressive copyright policies, said Haot, including immediate takedowns of copyrighted streams for rights holders like the NBA, and limiting accounts to 50 concurrent viewers until they have been verified. That’s allowed it to secure enough advertising from Google and ScanScout to cover the cost of bandwidth for the free service. The paid service is already profitable. And the company has some cash on reserve from its $12.7 million in funding from Gannett and angel investors.

It’s quite possible that the live-streaming market will become a lot bigger than it is today, and nobody will remember the days of trying to remember just how to say “Mogulus” (maw-gyew-lus? mo-guh-lus?). And hey, nobody had been using the URL livestream.com for a while now. But if this doesn’t pan out, I’m going to blame the company’s failure on a rebranding that is just so tragically boring.

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Topic: Startups

Comments (1)

This is a good move. No brainer. Mogulus is too odd, too sci-fi, especially against Ustream, which is pretty self-explanatory.

Nick — 9:51 AM on May 19, 2009 Reply

Linkbacks (7)

[...] reports the Livestream.com domain cost the startup $100,000. NewTeeVee says LiveStream still has about $12.7 million in cash [...]

Finance Geek » Mogulus Rebrands, Pays $100… — 7:10 AM on May 19, 2009
[...] When the company decided to rebrand, they acquired the Livestream.com domain name for about $100,000. Through advertising opportunities with ScanScout and Google, the company is nearing profitability according to NewTeeVee. [...]

Mogulus Turns Into LiveStream.com, Paid … — 10:53 AM on May 19, 2009
[...] Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee first reported the story this morning. She reports the company has reached profitability. [...]

The Far Edge » Blog Archive »… — 12:18 PM on May 19, 2009
[...] has customers such as USAT (through its Gannett connection) and C-Span, among others. The company says it is already profitable on the pro-accounts, and has a bunch of cash left from its $12.7 million funding [...]

Paid Content : Rebranding Roundup: Macrovision… — 1:04 PM on May 19, 2009
[...] the Livestream.com domain cost the startup $100,000. NewTeeVee says LiveStream still has about $12.7 million in cash [...]

The iMagazine » Mogulus Rebrands, Pays… — 1:44 PM on May 19, 2009
[...] 0 Comments DomainNews.com reports the Livestream.com domain cost the startup $100,000. NewTeeVee says LiveStream still has about $12.7 million in cash [...]

The iMagazine — 1:49 PM on May 19, 2009
[...] live video company, Livestream (which until this week was called Mogulus), is trying to stand out from Justin.tv and Ustream by monitoring copyright more [...]

Copyright Meets a New Worthy Foe: The Real… — 9:01 PM on May 21, 2009