What Happened
Tumblr launched a live video feature on Tuesday. Unlike its competitors, however, the Yahoo-owned company neither developed a native streaming product in-house a la Facebook, nor did it acquire a startup to integrate with its service like Twitter did with Periscope. Instead, Tumblr is teaming up with several live-streaming sites such as YouTube, YouNow, AOL’s Kanvas, and Betaworks-backed Upclose to allow broadcasters to cross-post their livestreams to their linked Tumblr blogs.
Tumblr users will receive a push notification when someone they follow posts a live video, and the posts will also be pinned atop dashboard feeds to boost visibility. Users will also have the option to save their livestreams as a regular video post on Tumblr once they are done. Besides syndicating content from other services, Tumblr is also working closely with publishers such as Mashable, Refinery29, MTV and The Huffington Post to promote their live video across Tumblr’s “owned channels.”
Why Brands Should Care
By joining forces with several livestreaming sites, Tumblr can help broadcasters on those services reach a bigger audience and offers them a good place to build an archive for their live video content. Although Tumblr has yet to lay out a plan to monetize this new product, it is still a new channel that brands experimenting with live content should heed. As live video starts to take off, brands should consider sponsorships or broadcasting their own events to connect with their audience and draw some new eyeballs.
While it is safe to say that Tumblr, along with all other services it joined forces with, has a lot of catching up to do to compete with Facebook, which just signed about 140 deals with celebrities and media companies for live content creation, it is important that brands try out different platforms to figure out which one best matches with their target audience.
Source: Marketing Land
