'Lifecasting' Can Make Anyone a Reality Star
In December, Dana Neil Oaklund of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., began streaming live video on the Internet from a laptop in his SUV to assure his customers that their cargo was safe. What he didn't expect was that dozens of people would get a kick out of seeing him stuck in traffic in California or cruising between snow-covered mountains in Colorado.
"It just blows my mind," said Oaklund, who escorts oversize loads, while parked in San Diego. "Right now there are 33 people who think this is interesting enough to watch. A lot of people tell me, `Oh, wow, this is cool because I am getting to see the country without leaving my desk.'"
Oaklund is a "lifecaster," one of a growing number of people creating their own reality shows by broadcasting live for a few minutes or hours at a time from their computers or cell phones. Unlike videos uploaded to YouTube, lifecasters are inviting viewers into their world to see what they see, comment on it and ask questions, all in real time.
Broadcasting live from a webcam is nothing new, but what makes services such as Justin.tv, Ustream.tv and Yahoo Live (live.yahoo.com) different is that technology has evolved to the point where practically anyone can stream live from almost anywhere and interact with people who are watching.
You don't need to be a technical genius or even have your own Web page. And with the spread of wireless Internet and the fact that webcams have become a standard feature on many new computers, you might not even have to buy anything.
Oaklund, 40, uses a mobile broadband connection to broadcast as the "Master Roadcaster" on Justin.tv. People tune in from all over the world to laugh at his jokes, make comments about other drivers, tell him to slow down or suggest hotels for him. While driving, he glances at the computer screen when it's safe and speaks into a headset to respond to questions and comments. He usually has 15 to 100 people watching.
"People are already looking at video online, so wouldn't it be funny if you could watch a funny video clip and you could tell the person doing it, `Hey, do that again'?" said Michael Seibel, CEO of Justin.tv.
Seibel started Justin.tv in 2006 with three friends to live broadcast co-founder Justin Kan 24/7 as he walked around San Francisco with a camera attached to his hat. In October, the site opened to everyone, and it now has more than 430,000 registered users, about 34,000 of whom are broadcasters.
Britta Seisums, 18, typically streams live from her red-polka-dot-covered bedroom for about four hours after school each weekday. She plays games with viewers, dances to pop songs, hangs out with her friends, talks about school and curses out people who come into the chat room and are rude.
Seisums has been creating her own Web sites since she was about 10 and wants to work in Web development. "I keep the camera on as much as possible, but I like to have privacy. If I don't want to be on camera, then I put the camera on my animals."
In recent episodes, she has bathed her guinea pigs, painted a video-game console and accidentally spilled soda on her laptop.
Seisums is careful not to reveal too many details about herself or where she lives and has moderators who ban people who are vulgar. Her typical audience is about the same size as Oaklund's.
Oaklund thinks his broadcasts are popular because he's always somewhere different, and because he spends so many hours on the road, viewers don't have trouble finding him.
"It's a lot of fun; they keep me in stitches," he said.
At 61, Don Browne of LaBelle bills himself as the "world's oldest lifecaster." A retired teacher who loves technology and blogs about local news, Browne spends about six to eight hours a day in front of the camera while working at his computer.
He has danced to Hannah Montana and rap music, played the ukulele, looked for groundhogs in his backyard, brushed his cat and taken calls from someone claiming to be CBS Corp. President and CEO Les Moonves.
"It's just so novel that you can look into somebody's house and they don't know you are watching," Browne said. "You are like Superman with X-ray vision."
To get a glimpse of the future of live streaming, look no further than Qik.com, the Web site of a California company that has developed free software to stream live video from cell phones to the Internet and display live chat on the phone and the Internet.
Florian Seroussi, 39, a Qik user and the CEO of a Miami telecommunications company, has used the service to stream the takeoff of the Airbus A380 and his son's second birthday party so Seroussi's mother in Paris could watch it live.
Seroussi said streaming from a mobile phone is about being a witness or a reporter for events and places.
"I just want to share what is happening through my eyes," Seroussi said.
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WHAT IS LIFECASTING?
It's a live, ongoing video broadcast of someone's life streamed live on the Internet. Some people associate lifecasting with streaming 24/7 from a wearable camera, but the term also includes people who broadcast live less frequently. Viewers can interact with the broadcaster through a chat window. Although most lifecasting is done from a computer, people are starting to use cell phones.
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© 2008, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).
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