Why I’m Sticking With Google Hangout for Livestreaming My Daily Web Video Shows.
So… an hour and a half into my three hour Daily Blob livestream show Google Hangout booted me off today. With no warning or reason I was suddenly logged out of Google and the show stopped literally in mid sentence. On days like this many fans, and even myself, begin to wonder when I will migrate off of Google Hangout for my Daily Shows.
The reality is that I will probably not migrate away from Google Hangout until YouTube Live opens up as a solution that I am offered. Although on the surface of it there seem to be better options… at the end of the day Google Hangout is the best one for my needs.
The fact that it’s free is nice, but is not a huge consideration. The bigger factor is that I make a good deal of money off of YouTube at the moment. My videos are “monetized” and due to this I bring home a nice pay check from YouTube every month. The amount I bring home generally comes to how many of my videos are watched. YouTube rewards content creators that receive Comments, Thumbs Up, and Other User Interaction by sending more traffic to the creators YouTube Channel. So basically the more content that you create for YouTube, and the more user interaction you get, means the more traffic YouTube will send your way which means the more money you will make…
Since I have my audience ask questions and leave comments during the live show I generally receive between 100-300 comments per show. Add in 50-100 thumbs ups per show and this greatly boosts my rankings within the YouTube ecoverse which then directly adds to my paycheck.
The problems that my viewers have noticed with using Google Hangout are worth taking note of, but don’t come to the level to move me from using Google Hangout for Streaming. People dislike the multiple screens that are shown when they are watching the Daily Blob.
They also dislike the audio and video quality of the streams, and of course dislike when the stream spontaneously dies for no apparent reason.
As far as the multiple screens go… I don’t like it, but I don’t view it as a huge issue. Once YouTube Live is made available to me this will go away.
As far as the Video and Audio quality go… I truly dislike this, but I feel that YouTube will correct this soon. YouTube has made great strides in the quality of their video distribution over the past year and a half. I know they are working to make the quality better, and honestly feel that it will improve within a reasonable amount of time. I feel it is better to stick with YouTube now to increase my stats, and that this will be rewarded once the quality improves later.
As far as the streams spontaneously crashing… sadly in the computer world I categories this as “crap happens”. There are numerous reasons streams can crash and they do not all revolve around the streaming vendor. If I have a computer glitch, or my ISP service is erratic it won’t matter whether I’m using Google Hangout or Livestream… the stream will still go down in flames…
So my overall argument for sticking with Google Hangout is that from what I have seen YouTube rewards people that are loyal to YouTube. The issues that I do see I believe will be corrected by YouTube in a reasonable amount of time. So for now I will accept below par service for the hope that things will get better. YouTube has made great strides in a short amount of time. In business sometimes you just have to place a bet and go with your gut instinct. For now my gut says to stick with Google Hangout for my Daily Blob Livestream show…
Eli the Computer Guy has 16 years experience in technology being the guy to fix "it". From the Army, to building out new satellite offices for the enterprise, to running his own shop with 9 full time employees Eli has real world experience with almost all systems that technicians will be working with. Eli has 1600 hours of formal technical beyond his Bachelors Degree in Criminal Justice on technologies ranging from Avaya PBX/ Audix to Microsoft, Red Hat Linux, MySQL, Cisco and much more.
