As of right now, live streaming has already outlived its revolutionary position as a technology and has become one of the most widely used broadcasting formats. For years, major corporations have benefited from live broadcasting. But now, it is available to literally everyone. Let’s now look at the history of live streaming.
The Early Live Streaming History
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Live material has always been favoured above recorded stuff. We like attending concerts, watching live TV, and listening to our favourite radio stations.
Unbelievably, the earliest live streaming happened back when people still watched VHS tapes on CRT TVs and used modems to access the internet. It all happened when two computer scientists and engineers from the band Severe Tire Damage wanted to test out some new equipment during their routine performance on June 24, 1993, at Xerox PARC in California. They streamed their performance to a site called Mbone.
RealNetworks, an online company, created RealPlayer, the first media player with live streaming capabilities, in 1995. The business held its first live webcast for the general public later that year. The company streamed a baseball match between the Seattle Mariners and the New York Yankees. In terms of revenue, live streaming remained something of an experiment that needed more compelling reasons.
RealVideo, one of the first applications to market live video streaming, was released by RealNetworks in 1997. Live broadcasting didn’t take off, however, despite this event.
The Growth of Live Streaming
Some time passed, and we saw the launch of YouTube Live and its first live event in 2008. Stars including Smosh, Katy Perry, MythBusters, and Bo Burnham performed and participated in interviews during the simultaneous live streaming from San Francisco and Tokyo. The live event was seen as a success, yet something wasn’t quite right.
YouTube only sometimes hosts live broadcasts; it never developed into a dedicated live-streaming platform. The two most famous ones were a live Q&A session with Barack Obama in 2010 and a U2 performance in 2009. The business soon began working on creating its own live-streaming system.
It may be argued that other businesses were able to capitalize on YouTube’s tardiness in promoting their streams to the market. 2011 saw the birth of a new video game-focused streaming network by Twitch.tv (previously known as Justin.tv). It didn’t seem evident at the time that this concept would be even somewhat successful. However, Twitch had more than 45 million monthly viewers only two years later.
Twitter purchased Periscope, a live broadcasting platform, in 2015. Afterwards, in 2016, Facebook and Instagram also unveiled their live-streaming products.
The Live Streaming Age of Today
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Live streaming on social media has been steadily and consistently rising in popularity ever since it was introduced. In 2018, Facebook hosted almost 3.5 million live broadcasts! Additionally, people worldwide saw over 1.1 billion hours of live videos before the end of 2019. Live streaming is becoming more and more popular every day.
What about other forms of live-stream entertainment, like live dealer casinos? The first state to approve live dealer casino studios, which are required by law to be housed inside of casinos in Atlantic City, was New Jersey. And Evolution was the first provider to officially offer live dear games to NJ players. Evolution, a provider of online casino services, is currently growing its live dealer network for online gaming companies in New Jersey.
Live streaming is one of the most popular channels for marketing, communication, and entertainment these days.
What do you make of this feature? Are you going to start live-streaming?
