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.

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