

Secret to Justin.tv's Recent Traffic Surge - peterbnet
http://petersnetpipe.wordpress.com/2008/04/12/secret-to-justintvs-recent-traffic-surge/

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iamelgringo
I really think that this is going to end up showcasing J.TV's biggest
strength. Media companies have had a hard time doing live video streaming
right.

The advantage of streaming live events like sports games, is that by the time
the copyright owner is aware of what you're doing and sends to a cease and
desist letter, the even has been over for weeks.

There's also a huge advantage in serving ads over live video streams: You
control the video content that the ads are playing next to. The reason that
advertising on online video hasn't taken off is because corporations really
don't want to play their commercials next to a video of a teenager lighting a
fart on fire. You can avoid that problem by streaming live.

Any thoughts on streaming live events like Startup School? I'm sure that you'd
have tons of viewers. It'd be a great service to people on hacker news. And,
I'm sure it would be great exposure for you. Just a thought.

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zkinion
So? All the power to them.

If they're close to getting acquired, this could be a very good strategy, and
could even be a catalyst for an acquisition altogether. This is a VERY nice
end game move.

Those "big" lawsuits don't happen till normally later in the game. Those "big"
lawsuits also take a very long time, and in the mean time traffic would
continue to skyrocket (it already has past ustream.tv by far). I think this is
definately a winning strategy, and predict the lawsuit will either A) never
happen, or B) will happen far too late to put them out of business.

If jtv had started pimping out pirate traffic a year ago when they first
started, things would be different. They're going to make bank off of this.
Just watch.

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jotto
So? The reason this kind of thing is a problem is ethics. The blog post this
refers to made strong opinions on the ethics of this situation - negatively.

If the speculation that JTV guys are consciously allowing this to happen is
true, then it is a failure of ethics and breaking of rules.

The attitude you reflect may win publicity but at the cost of ethics.

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zkinion
Hosting content that users submit, that is actually the property of massive
media conglomerates, is not my idea of breaking ethics.

Look at myspace -> started as a full blown illegal spam operation. facebook ->
supposedly started sending spam to get initial users and a stolen database. +
privacy issues. slide -> "spammy as hell" apps, plus was recently caught
posting fake reviews. youtube -> massive trademark infringement. microsoft ->
don't even get me started.

The list goes on and on. I don't even consider posting up "baseball" games to
be unethical at all. Look at Sean Parker. Would he of gotten in with the
facebook crew early on if he had not founded Napster, which was just basically
a user friendly warez app? He's doing quite well these days I'd imagine.

The majority of startups out there do some shifty stuff, especially in the
early game, before new funding cycles, and end game. From purchasing Chinese
traffic before a funding round to prop up growth, to spamming for initial
users, to pirate content, there is a lot going on out there that you might not
know about.

I'm not promoting unethical practices in anyway, just pointing out that
pirated content is not especially gruesome as you make it out to be, and also
point out how wide-spread such activities are.

About 99% of the people here would do the same thing in the same situation.

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jotto
first you say its not your idea of breaking ethics, then you say how so many
startups have (my word here) unscrupulous practices.

the fact that people are doing it does not make it ethically sound.

