Thursday, April 24, 2008 Toral: Creating online TV station By Janette Toral Digital Filipino
DO you like to be-come the star of your own TV program? Well, you are lucky as there are websites today that allow you to create your own program online.
It has been decided that the proceedings of the iBlog4: The 4th Blogging Summit (http://www. iblogph.org) will be streamed over the Internet so that folks who can’t make it would be able to watch the whole thing. This need has been identified in the past years.
With better bandwidth, it is now possible to stream live video to Internet users worldwide, through sites like Justin.TV, UStream. TV and Blip.TV, among others.
I tried creating mine yesterday at http://www. justin.tv/janettetoral.
Apart from live video streaming, these sites usually has a chat room where viewers can ask a question while the broadcast is running. This can be moderated to ensure that no viewer will spam or abuse the chat room.
Some of them are also tied to social networks. It will make a plug or announcement whenever a broadcast goes live.
I was able to send a plug through Twitter.com when I was doing my test program and was glad that friends checked it out.
To create your own online TV station, you need to consider the following:
Name of your channel. What is your program all about? It can be about your life, sports, news and entertainment, among others.
Schedule. You can broadcast anytime you like or have a schedule so that viewers can keep track.
Channel owners and fans can create their own highlight citing a specific segment that they find of interest and add comments to it.
Online video programs are gradually evolving in the country. Earlier this year, I was asked to help out YouGotTech.com of Aileen Apolo. Last week, Davao-based Oliver Robillo just started PinoyTech.TV. So from podcast and video sharing sites, we are now moving towards live broadcast.
I’m sure that this will be used in conferences, events and political campaigns in the years to come.
For those who are entrepreneurial, this can serve as a new opportunity to reach out to target markets and generate revenues online.
