Vimeo Livestream is an American video live streaming platform that allows customers to broadcast live video content using a camera and a computer through the Internet, and viewers to play the content via the web, iOS, Android, Roku, and the Apple TV. Livestream requires a paid subscription for content providers to use; it formerly offered a free ad-supported service but no longer does so as of 2016. Livestream customers include Spotify, Gannett, World Economic Forum, Tesla, SpaceX, the NBA, RISD, Clinton Global Initiative, over 200 local TV affiliates, and thousands of others.
History
Livestream was founded as Mogulus in 2007 by Max Haot, Dayananda Nanjundappa, Phil Worthington, and Mark Kornfilt, and has offices in New York, Los Angeles, London, Zaporizhia and Bangalore. It launched with a free streaming service, and introduced its white label “pro” service in April 2008 with Gannett as its first customer. In July 2008, Gannett invested in Mogulus with $10 million in funding. In May 2009, Mogulus re-branded as Livestream. In May 2014, the company moved its headquarters from Chelsea to Brooklyn, New York. Jesse Hertzberg was appointed CEO in April 2015, with all four founders remaining with the company in senior roles. In 2017, Livestream appointed cofounder Mark Kornfilt as the new CEO. On September 26, 2017, Livestream was acquired by IAC via subsidiary Vimeo. The service expects to incorporate Livestream staff and technology into a newly-launched video streaming service.
Events
Concerts
In September 2009, Livestream started providing custom channel pages to stream events like concerts from Kina Grannis, Pixie Lott, Eric Gales, David Gray, and Foo Fighters. These pages integrated live chat, Twitter, and Facebook. On October 30, 2009, the Foo Fighters played their first internet-only live concert from their studio space Studio 606 in Los Angeles. Viewers were able to interact directly with the band, ask questions, and requests songs through a custom Facebook page with an integrated chat feature. The band played 2 hours and 45 minutes of greatest hits to more than 150,000 viewers around the world. Rock band Saosin performed an exclusive acoustic performance inside Livestream's offices followed by a live chat. On September 16, 2009, Boys Like Girls also played an interactive performance on Facebook and Livestream. The following month, American rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars, composed of actor Jared Leto and brother Shannon Leto streamed a live interview with their fans, which was also available for viewing on the iPhone. An in-store performance by rock band Motion City Soundtrack was streamed live from New Jersey record store Vintage Vinyl on January 20, 2010.
Other events
Livestream claims to serve over 10,000 paying customers and to have streamed several million events in 2014. Customers include The New York Times, Spotify, BBC, several professional and college sports leagues around the world, Associated Press, and Tesla. Livestream has broadcast major events including the European Space Agency's Rosetta comet landing and the Times SquareNew Year's Eve celebration. Livestream also broadcast a panel discussion between renowned hip-hop and reggae artists. Rapper Nas and reggae star Damian Marley discussed Distant Relatives, their album and documentary about the shared African roots of hip-hop and reggae. DJs Kool Herc and Red Alert and dancehall legend U-Roy and dub-producer King Jammy were also on-hand to discuss the historical and cultural connections between the two genres of music.
Products
In 2007 Mogulus introduced 'Studio', an online interface that simulated a tv studio. Users could mix camera feeds, video, YouTube, tickers, overlays to create a "netcast". A Mac/PC desktop client 'Procaster' could be used to combine a camera feed with screen capture. Procaster was later renamed Livestream Producer. On October 29, 2011 Livestream introduced a new online platform. This dispensed with the channel approach of Studio in favor of an event based one. Multiple video posts, images, or text items could be added to an event. The platform also included an adaptive bitrate player.
