Ustream.tv came out swinging from all angles this year in the live video market. Techies streamed Macworld in January and politicos on both sides got an inside look at the RNC and Obama's victory speech. And, topping it all off amid an economic crisis, the world watched a bed full of Shiba Inu puppies.
As of this week, the pups have pulled in more than 15 million views and about 790 years of human consumption for both live and recorded video. Even as the dogs are adopted and taken away, the traffic has been steady with 5,000 to 10,000 simultaneous views per second, says Ustream co-founder Brad Hunstable.
And all of the attention has been good in the long term for business by introducing the site to a whole new mainstream demographic beyond the early tech adopters.
“In terms of advertisers, previously we were having to beat down doors,” he said. “We’ve seen a very nice shift of people coming to us.”
One of the big deals to emerge from the fad is with Hollywood. Hatchiko, a remake of a Japanese film about a Shiba Inu dog starring Richard Gere, will feature footage from the puppy cam. Ustream will help the producers promote the movie using other puppy cams to create buzz.
In addition to advertising revenue, Ustream picked up $11.1 million in round A funding this past April.
“Money at this point for us, at least within the next two years is not an issue,” he said without disclosing any other details.
Traffic to livestreaming sites has increased over the past few months, according to Quantcast. Ustream's biggest competitors are Justin.tv and Stickam, and there has been a lot of speculation about whether YouTube will enter the livestreaming fray.
But Hunstable says he isn't worried about them and doesn't think the YouTube move is likely.
He also says Ustream will make three major announcements in
Q1 of next year, one of which will be a major redesign of the site to include more discovery tools and ways of sharing content.
Rumors and a video have been floating around this week that Ustream has been working on a mobile streaming application. If true, this would put Ustream in direct competition with mobile streaming service Qik, Filxwagon and Kyte.
