A journey of innovation.
On October 14, 2012, when Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner plummeted toward earth from the stratosphere, it became a hair-raising moment for millions of viewers worldwide. In a high-altitude skydiving project sponsored by Red Bull, he jumped from a helium balloon from the world-record height of 38,969.3 meters (127,852 feet) before landing in eastern New Mexico.
Of the total height, he covered 36,402.6 meters (119,431 feet) by free falling and reaching an estimated top speed of 1,357.64 km/h (843.6 mph), or Mach 1.25, whereas for the final 2,566.7 meters (8,421 feet), he used parachute.
Felix underwent rigorous training for five years under the supervision of military personnel and scientists before pulling out his extreme daredevilery. Other than viewers celebrating his groundbreaking achievement, people at YouTube were also witnessing a revolutionary milestone in the field of live streaming.
The jump of Felix Baumgartner was watched by more than 8 million viewers on the official YouTube channel of Red Bull. It was a record for the highest viewership of any live stream until it was broken on August 23, 2023, when the landing of ISRO’s Vikram rover on the moon racked up 8.06 million viewers. This adrenaline-fueled show also prompted everyone to understand that the greatest leaps aren't just physical, they're technological too.
Although YouTube created a record with the live streaming of Felix’s thrilling stunt, some events in the history of live streaming played a key role in popularizing this phenomenon among netizens.
On June 24, 1993, Severe Tire Damage, an American rock and roll band, was performing a gig at the patios of Xerox PARC. On one side, the band members comprising engineers and scientists continued their show and on the other, scientists working in the same facility were working on a technology (Mbone) to live stream the event. Fledging their tech-savvy tunes, they accomplished their mission. The live streaming was seen in Australia and elsewhere carrying IP multicast traffic on the Internet, making Severe Tire Damage the first band to perform live on the Internet. This historical event in the journey of live streaming paved the way for artists worldwide to share their music in real-time online.
A 19-year-old student from Pennsylvania, Jennifer Ringley, installed a webcam in her dorm room, and from April 14, 1996, she started to provide her images on a website, captured from her camera. The website was programmed to update every three minutes, displaying the latest snapshot captured by the camera. On her website, JenniCam, she began broadcasting her unfiltered life with scenes of studying, doing laundry, brushing her teeth, and even sexual intercourse and masturbation. Commonly hailed as the first web-based lifecaster and the first camgirl, her website used to get seven million hits per day at its peak before it was shut down on December 31, 2003.
Justin Kan, a 23-year-old American, decided to live stream his daily routines, interactions with people, and other mundane activities. On March 19, 2007, he attached a webcam to his cap and began live streaming on Justin.tv via a laptop-backpack system. His experiment of sharing personal experiences with a first-person perspective of surroundings gained worldwide attention popularizing the concept of live streaming. Very soon, Justin.tv evolved into a network of thousands of channels with mostly gamers in it. On June 6, 2011, the gaming section moved to a freshly launched website which is now a cultural icon — Twitch. On August 5, 2014, Justin.tv was closed, and in the same month, Amazon acquired Twitch for USD 970 million.
Collectively, the individuals and events connected to Severe Tire Damage, Jennifer Ringley, and Justin Kan challenged conventional communication norms and showed how powerful live streaming can be for fostering instantaneous connections, experience sharing, and community building. Their pioneering efforts inspired others to explore the possibilities of live streaming, contributing to the widespread adoption of this transformative technology in the digital age.
The rapidly evolving technology helped content creators and aspiring streamers to leverage live streaming as their go-to tool for connecting with the world real-time. Gamers, musicians, journalists, activists, salespersons, teachers, and people from different walks of life have used live streaming to not only excel in their careers but also to generate additional sources of income for their financial stability.
If you’re just getting started and want to explore the endless possibilities of live streaming, there are some quintessential requirements. Make sure you’ve got them to pursue your passion with confidence:
A good device (desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone) is the lifeline of your streaming journey, powering all the magical processes that make your live stream come to life. Having a top-notch device (with a good-quality camera and microphone) for live streaming is akin to wielding a wizard's wand; it transforms you from a blurry mess into a streaming sensation.
A stable and dependable Internet connection is your trusted partner when it comes to tackling latency, buffering, pixelation, and other issues that offer a horrible audio-visual experience to viewers. An upgrade in your existing connection (if low speed) can significantly save you from a heap of disappointment.
Let's face it, diving into complicated software is like navigating a maze with a blindfold on; you might eventually find your way, but you'll probably end up lost and grumpy. With Yostream, you can start live streaming directly from your browser rather than downloading any program. With a user-friendly interface, Yostream is super-easy to use and doesn’t give the headache of tech meltdowns.
Whether you’re discussing a geo-political issue, teaching students thermodynamics, or selling hair wigs to bald people, the quality of your content is what keeps your audience glued to their screens. It not only enhances the reputation of your brand/channel but also opens avenues for monetization. Research thoroughly and create meaningful content in the crowded space of the Internet which is as mesmerizing as a flame dancing in the darkness.
No matter whether you’ve invested a good deal of time, energy, and creativity in generating an awesome live stream, it won't make an impact if nobody sees it. Create teasers and banners in advance, collaborate with influencers, and go for email marketing or even paid advertising to let people know. Even though your stream is over, you can use clips or key highlights of the event to promote it on social media for an extended reach and engagement.
Yostream serves as the backbone of your streaming setup, enabling you to live stream your content seamlessly to your viewers. Having the advantage of streaming directly from your web browser rather than installing software and fiddling up their complex settings, you don’t need to invest in a high-performance computing rig.
Without the guidance of a seasoned streamer, you too can create professional-grade streams using the custom branding option. You can broaden your reach and engagement by multistreaming to different social media platforms and by adding custom RTMP destinations. With the interactive chat feature, you can read and respond to comments and other queries from a single interface without shuffling between multiple tabs.
With the integration of OBS and Zoom into Yostream, you can leverage additional functionalities beyond the core features. Since it’s an economical live streaming software, you can select the desired pricing plans to enjoy premium features and services like webinar.