Life and Tech #17: Live video report

Thanks for letting me take a few weeks off of the newsletter. This is what I sent out last night to my email subscribers. Subscribe at https://eepurl.com/bjalx5 

Yesterday, I spent some time on the phone with someone from Facebook. They are planning on expanding their live video features to people who aren’t just celebrities, but they're also rolling it out slowly. Here’s the Techcrunch article about that: https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/12/facebook-live-livestreaming/

At Rackspace we're very interested in using Facebook’s Live Video to bring you into places, provide training and do other things to let our customers and partners know what’s up. You might be interested too.

Today, I was on MSNBC discussing live video: https://www.msnbc.com/code-forward/watch/is-facebook-live-killing-internet-equality--504263235765

Marketers who think it’s another way to push through messages are salivating, but Facebook is holding them back. So far, only verified celebrities have access to the feature (I’m expected to get an early look “within hours,” according to Facebook).

What will I do with it? The same thing I’d recommend you do with it: be careful and use it sparingly. Yes, you can get your content pushed out right now, but if you overuse it and don’t provide value, people will remove you from their notifications and/or unfollow or unfriend you. At Rackspace we just say, “be helpful.”

So, even if I broadcast myself eating dinner, there will be some sort of payoff for the folks who watch my live videos. An interview with someone interesting, how-to content or a look at a new technology or product.

Another way to look at the video market is how to make a video go viral. Here I talk with Samir Arora, CEO of Mode Media (seventh largest media company on the Internet). He walks me through the stats behind a video they had that went viral (58 million views in 21 days). He also shares how dominant Facebook and YouTube are:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153488066244655&set=pb.501319654.-2207520000.1439467138.

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This week’s big news was Google’s major reorg under the brand “Alphabet.” I was over at Shel Israel’s house (longtime journalist and strategist, who wrote two books with me) and we talked about what it all means: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153500929474655/

Basically, it will help Google unlock a lot of value as it allows its member “companies” like YouTube or Nest, to thrive separately from the Google brand and business model.

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I also spoke at the PR Summit this week. Here Rich Reader captured me talking about why I’m so passionate about Virtual Reality:
https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153507886774655?pnref=story

This afternoon, the founders of Upload VR (who are doing the VR pavilion at Techcrunch Disrupt, among many other things) came over and we also talked about VR: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/vb.501319654/10153509592729655/

Can you tell I’m a bit excited by VR?

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Even security cameras are coming to the cloud. Here, founder and CEO Dean Drakko shows me Eagle Eye Networks:
https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153505887959655/
It isn’t his first time starting a company. Years ago he started Barracuda Networks, which got very big. He is a passionate evangelist for cloud technology and shows off many features that make a video security system better than when it was hosted on-premise.

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Do you want to do your own PR, but need help figuring out which journalists to hit? Then Press Friendly will be great for you. Take a look here: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/videos/10153503165074655/

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Do you watch Product Hunt? I do. This is where you can find tons of new products before anyone else on your block learns about them. Here they've put together a collection of Drone-oriented software: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153501531879655

Here’s another Product Hunt compilation of things that will automatically do stuff for you: https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10153503185589655

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I read all my email at [email protected] and anything done in response to this newsletter goes to the top of my inbox. I’m also at +1-425-205-1921 or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble. Please let me know how I, or Rackspace, the leading managed cloud company, can be of service to you.

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And a big thank you to Hugh MacLeod, who does the fabulous art each week for my newsletter. You can find his work at https://www.gapingvoid.com