What do we mean by One Way Broadcast? It’s basically, a person performing or speaking to an audience (of strangers usually), who can comment, give (virtual) gifts and ask the performer written questions which he/ she can choose to answer.
How does it make money? The ‘gifts’ are bought by the viewer and sent to the performer who get a majority of the amount the ‘gifter’ paid. Once the ‘performance’ is over — you cannot see it again, some live streams have as many as 10,000 people watching!
Much of it is very strange. The ‘artists’ are mostly women, doing mundane tasks like combing their hair or singing while the audience (mostly men) gives virtual gifts and passes comments. Why is this growing so fast? Especially Apps like BIGO? Most of these apps have curation policies that don’t allow for obscene & inappropriate behavior. At some level however, it feeds in to our fundamentally voyeuristic nature.
The only Indian company in this list is #fame which despite getting off to a great start and picking up $13 Mn of funding has ceded its market share almost entirely to BIGO. Is there space for more? Sure — live video as a category is still wide open — from education to sports & entertainment — there’s a lot to build.
The kicker? None of these Apps are even main stream yet. But they will be.
Then there’s Social Media which you’re all more familiar with — these are basically built on top of existing social networks where a person can broadcast content to a closed group or to the general public. You can of course leave comments or watch the video later on platforms like facebook. SnapChat & Instagram don’t give you that option.
I know that all the cool kids are on Snap Chat these days, but they don’t really represent India.
Facebook is still the go to platform for social networking in India. Is that open to change? Sure, but not anytime soon.
Thanks for your time,
Ashish
- Team KG
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You can reach me on ashish@kalagato.com
