YouTube Live Tokyo Fails
Whereas YouTube Live in San Francisco attracted 700,000 concurrent live viewers, YouTube Live Tokyo attracts none — because it’s not even live. The show was supposed to start at 3pm Japan Standard Time. It is now 7:56pm in Japan, and there’s nary a live stream in sight.
Right at the end of the first YouTube Live show, Korean pop sensation BoA Kwon herself promised YouTube Live Tokyo would follow within hours. You can imagine, then, how many of YouTube Live’s 700,000 viewers stayed up to wait for YouTube Live Tokyo. They’re now expressing their disappointment in the YouTube Live Tokyo comments thread, with 2,820 replies and counting. It’s now a chatroom full of BoA fans, with the occasional troll spreading some silly rumor that BoA is dead.
All we’re getting now are periodic uploads of clips, with artists performing on a cute-but-cramped YouTube-themed stage. This is hardly “live” video. I certainly cannot imagine a big star like BoA performing on such a small stage.
Given the smashing success of YouTube Live, I doubt YouTube can believably claim YouTube Live Tokyo was supposed to be just a bunch of rapid-fire clip postings all along. Even if that really was the plan, YouTube did a terrible job setting expectations.
While YouTube Live is the ultimate proof-of-concept for live online video as a valid entertainment medium, YouTube Live Tokyo is a total failure. Pity that such a marvelous achievement should immediately be followed up by such an embarrassing fiasco.
Maybe the main reason it failed was because of little to no advertising in Tokyo? It’s IMHO that somehow it didn’t catch much of the people’s attention and nabbed only a niche audience.
You could be on to something, Alfred. YouTube Live featured Lionsgate, Activision, Virgin America, Flip Video, and HP as sponsors. YouTube Live Tokyo just had Toyota.
Hm… Maybe some underhanded means was used there, eh, Sir Mike?
I was at YouTube Live in San Francisco… IT WAS LIVE!
NO COMMERCIALS NO BREAKS
YouTube Livre Tokio WAS NOT BROADCASTED… ONLY YUOTUBE LIVE was broadcasted
all the dumb BoA fans got mixed up… if you want to see their performance go to the YouTube Live Tokio page
Seems like it may have been too ambitious — streaming on large scales like we are talking here is still a far reach from the reliability of other media platforms.