lyvegyde - your guide to live online events

Coachella Begins!

2009-04-17T10:52:00.001-07:00

Yeah, today is the first day of the Coachella music festival in California. AT&T Music will be webcasting parts of the festival live, include tonight's performances by Morrissey, Paul McCartney (I have actually seen both of them in concert!), and more. And I am so excited because they are going to be webcasting part of The Cure's performance on Sunday, yeah!

3D Keane Webcast

2009-04-02T08:34:00.000-07:00

Well, today at 3 pm ET, British band Keane is hosting what is apparently the first ever 3D webcast. They will be playing at the Abbey Road Studios in London. Their website has directions on how to make your own 3D glasses to watch the webcast. Should be lots of fun!!

Obama's Online Town Hall

2009-03-26T14:42:00.000-07:00

I thought that Obama's first online town hall this morning was great and I hope that he will continue to use this interactive format. He answered questions from the audience as well as video questions that were submitted online. According to the Washington Post, "92,000 people submitted 104,000 questions and cast 3.6 million votes" to see which questions the President would answer. Seems pretty successful to me!

Coachella Music and Arts Festival

2009-03-23T13:10:00.001-07:00

I am so excited because AT&T Music is going to be webcasting from the Coachella Music and Arts Festival in California next month. Their website does not say exactly which bands they will be showing, but I am really hoping that they will show The Cure's headlining performance on Sunday, April 19th!! :)

March Madness Webcasts

2009-03-18T13:35:00.000-07:00

I am so happy that CBS Sports will be webcasting the March Madness basketball games for free. I am looking forward to checking out some games tomorrow!

Fabchannel - I Will Miss You!!

2009-03-07T17:57:00.000-08:00

I am so sad to learn from TechCrunch today that live concert website Fabchannel is going out of business on March 13. I was such a huge fan of the site for several reasons: they had great concerts from bands I already knew and bands that were fun to discover, the production quality was great, they advertised details of the events well in advance, and they archived the events afterwards. I will truly miss you Fabchannel!! Fabchannel, which shows concerts live from Amsterdam, is blaming its demise on "bad economic prospects within the music and online advertising market." So sad...

Tenenbaum - RIAA Case Webcast

2009-02-24T08:37:00.000-08:00

Happy Mardi Gras! And don't forget that today is free pancake day at IHOP! :)

Well, a hearing from the Joel Tenenbaum - RIAA case was supposed to be webcast this afternoon, but it looks like the webcast won't be happening until later, if ever at all! It looks like the hearing that was scheduled for today has been pushed back until April 30 and the recording industry is still fighting to ban the webcast. The webcast was going to be one of the rare times that a recording from a Federal trial court was going to be allowed. I hope that the court will allow the upcoming hearing to be webcast! From browsing around online, it appears that there are a LOT of people interested in watching it!

The lawsuit is from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) against Boston University student Joel Tenenbaum and others. This particular hearing was for oral arguments of the parties' motions concerning the defendant's counterclaims, with the actual trial probably scheduled to begin in June. In the lawsuit, the RIAA is seeking $1 million for 7 copyrighted songs that Joel Tenenbaum downloaded in 2004 over peer-to-peer networks.

Ustream and Qik

2009-02-17T13:14:00.000-08:00

I read two things recently about live video streaming websites Ustream and Qik that I thought were pretty interesting.

Here's the first about Ustream.

Ustream just launced a service called Watershed for companies that want to upgrade from the free Ustream video player. The service will range between $.25 to $1 per viewer hour, based on the number of viewers, and features will include the ability to add a logo, chat, polling, video chat, Twitter integration, analytics and more. Sometimes I get frustrated by the current Ustream webcasts, so it will be interesting to see if many companies use this new service and make substantial improvements to their webcasts.

Here's the second about Qik.

A few days ago, someone on Qik live streamed a minute of his wife in the hospital while she was giving birth via c-section. He did not show the actual surgery, just his wife's face, but the hospital had requested that he not record the birth. Anyways, based on the article's reader comments, it looks like a lot of people have very strong opinions one way or another about whether or not this was appropriate. We'll see how people's feelings about this change over the years, as I am sure that this will just become more common!

Facebook & Cupcakes

2009-02-13T13:32:00.001-08:00

I was so excited last night because late last night on facebook, I received an "update" from one of my "groups" (The Smithsonian Institution). The update was about a live webcast today from 2-5 pm with an artist creating portraits of Obama and Lincoln out of cupcakes for President's Day. I had not come across any mentions of that webcast before, so thank goodness for facebook! It has been so much fun watching this webcast! They are almost done completing the portrait, and it looks great! It is made out of over 5,600 chocolate, vanilla, and red velvet cupcakes. Tomorrow they are going to have coverage from the museum from 12-6:30 as well. I'm not exactly sure what they will show, but at 5:00 they are going to let visitors eat the cupcakes! I wish that I could go, but I'll be out of town. Oh well.....

today's webcast - http://www.lyvegyde.com/events/1385

tomorrow's webcast - http://www.lyvegyde.com/events/1391

Twitter

2009-02-09T14:23:00.000-08:00

I have really grown to love twitter over the past month. I can't believe that I've only really been twittering for a month now and I already have almost 300 updates. I originally signed up for twitter for personal use early last year, but I wasn't really sure what I would use it for. To communicate with friends, I would just use email (or facebook now). Anyways, it is perfect though for sending out real-time updates to notify followers when live webcasts are about to start. I've also recently started using the search function more and it is pretty neat to find people who have enjoyed the webcasts that we have listed! Anyways, basically, I think that twitter is great!

Super Bowl - So, Why No Webcast?

2009-02-02T13:11:00.000-08:00

Well, I watched the Super Bowl yesterday, but it was very disappointing to me since there was no official live webcast! The NFL did stream the NBC Sunday Night games for free throughout this season, so I was really disappointed that they didn't follow through with a webcast of the biggest game of the year! The Sunday night games were produced really well, with multiple streams, statistics, and chats. It would have been a really nice touch to have the same features for last night's game.

Four main reasons I can think of for why the NFL should have streamed the Super Bowl are:

- Allow people who are not near a tv to watch the game (I guess this really means people at work!).

- Allow people who do not own a tv to watch the game. From what I have been reading, more and more people are getting rid of their tvs and just using the internet to watch programs.

- Online coverage allows for those extra special features such as multiple camera angles.

- When there is no webcast, it is frustrating for viewers who assume that it will be available online.

Plus did I mention that it is 2009!! :)

Coachella 2009

2009-01-30T08:42:00.000-08:00

I am so excited, because the Coachella music festival in California (April 2009) announced their lineup, and my favorite band, The Cure, will be there! Yeah! Last year, the AT&T Blue Room had a live Coachella webcast, so I am hoping that they will do it again. I'm a little bit concerned though, because a couple of months ago, AT&T reformatted their Blue Room, and honestly, I don't know that the content has been as good ever since. Please AT&T, hear my cry - please webcast Coachella again!!

Another Oprah Webcast

2009-01-28T14:26:00.000-08:00

Well, Oprah has another webcast tomorrow. Just a couple of weeks ago, she had her week-long Best Life webcast series, so I am excited to see that she already has another webcast in the works. The webcast is at 9:00 pm ET and features Dr. Christiane Northrup discussing hormone replacement therapy for women. Users can use a form to submit questions for Dr. Northrup.

I thought that the Best Life webcasts were very well produced and I was happy that they archived the webcasts very quickly the next day. I was afraid that the servers would freeze up from the number of viewers, but I didn't have any problems watching the webcasts at all. Also, it was nice that each individual person did not really have to register to watch the webcasts. I registered before the webcast series began and I received links each day to watch the various webcasts. I believe that the links were all the same, and the links worked without additional registration which was nice.

Inauguration Wrap-Up

2009-01-22T09:35:00.001-08:00

Well, the inauguration was 2 days ago, but I'm still trying to recover from all of the excitement! I still need to find some more archives of webcasts from some of the events in the evening. I also need to keep up with all of the other webcasts that we have going on, so it has been a little bit busy around her.

Thank you to everybody who linked to our site for inauguration events, and thank you to everyone who came to our site to find events. I was so impressed with the number of visitors that we had (from 47 states and 48 countries!) and I hope that the webcasts worked well for everyone. I know that there were lots of reports of news organizations' webcasts freezing up. Speaking of reports, I was also so excited to actually be quoted in an article by The Industry Standard. You can find it here!

Inauguration Webcasts

2009-01-19T07:17:00.000-08:00

Well, the inauguration is tomorrow, how exciting! We created a special section on lyvegyde with links to inauguration events. It still has been a little bit difficult to find details on all of them, but I will be updating lyvegyde throughout the day tomorrow in case I find any times or links that change. I hope that everything goes smoothly with the webcasts and that nobody's servers are overloaded! I also hope that everyone takes time to watch the inauguration!

lyvegyde for educators

2009-01-14T18:25:00.000-08:00

With the inauguration coming up on Tuesday, it looks like lots of teachers and other educators are trying to figure out how to show their students live coverage without having to use a tv. Hopefully they will consider using some of the inauguration day webcasts that we have been listing on lyvegyde. Since we just launched in October, here is some information about the site for educators (including an INAUGURATION section below).

WHAT IS LYVEGYDE?

lyvegyde (http://www.lyvegyde.com) is a website created by a brother and sister (that's me, Mary Stevens) to provide links to live, online events - primarily video webcasts, but also the occasional text chats or audio programs. We only provide links to free webcasts and we only rarely provide links to events that require registration (the event has to be really good!). We include events from organizations such as universities, think tanks, museums, congressional committees, government agencies, concert halls, sports organizations, and more. We also love interactive events, such as text chats or webcasts where viewers can submit questions. We do not include adult or otherwise explicit content.

We add upcoming events as we find them and also accept user-submitted events. Whenever possible, we also provide links to archives of events once they have ended. Our website automatically displays event times for your time zone. We sort events into live & starting soon (within the next 24 hours), future (anything beyond the next 24 hours, sorted by date), most anticipated (users have saved these events as a "favorite"), recently added, categories (events may be in multiple categories), recent events (our past events - they are labeled with "archived!" if we have a link to the archive), our picks (our favorite upcoming events), and our favorite archived events. The search feature is also helpful for finding events about a particular topic.

SOME LYVEGYDE DETAILS

lyvegyde is completely free to use and our website does not require registration. You can create an account if you would like to save events in a "my favorites" tab, save events that you have submitted in a "my submitted" tab, change your default time zone, or flag an event as over if we haven't realized that it has ended yet. Sometimes events start slightly later than their scheduled time or the event link will change at the last minute, but we try to monitor everything and make updates as soon as possible. Occasionally, video webcasts require software that isn't already typically installed on a computer, so it may be helpful to leave a couple of extra minutes to see if any special installation will be required by the event website. Also, we check the archive links when we add them, but occasionally an organization changes these links and we may not realize that they have been changed.

SOME ONLINE INAUGURATION COVERAGE FOR EDUCATORS

Unfortunately, some of the organizations providing webcast coverage for the inauguration have released few details. I will be updating lyvegyde as quickly as possible, including on inauguration day when I will be monitoring the sites constantly.

- CNN Live will be integrated with facebook on inauguration day for any schools or teachers who want to update their facebook pages during the day. More details are here .

- The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies website states that they will have streaming coverage of the swearing-in ceremony with CLOSED CAPTIONING, which could be helpful in a classroom environment. The website does not say what time their coverage will begin. The actual swearing-in ceremony takes place at noon ET on January 20th. See lyvegyde link here.

- News organizations such as C-SPAN, MSNBC, CBS News, Fox News, and more have also announced that they will have inauguration day coverage. Find more links on lyvegyde.

SOME OTHER UPCOMING EVENT LINKS FOR EDUCATORS

Here are examples of some upcoming video webcasts during the school day that may be of interest to teachers and their students:

- Monday, January 19 at 1:00 pm ET - Princeton University's Annual King Day Celebration includes awards given to students in grades 4-12 for an essay, poster, and video contest - see lyvegyde link here

- Monday, January 26th at 9:45 am ET - The American Library Association's Youth Media Awards which includes the prestigious John Newbery Medal, given to an author for the "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children" - see lyvegyde link here

Other upcoming events may be of interest to educational leaders. For example, on Wednesday, February 11 at 5:00 pm ET, Rice University is holding a panel discussion on the politics of teaching evolution in Texas. See lyvegyde link here.

ARCHIVED EVENT LINKS FOR EDUCATORS

In addition to providing links upcoming live events, we also provide links to archived events whenever possible. Some categories where educators may find interesting events include education, children & family, political, government, science, and more. Sample events include the following:

- December 17th interactive video webcast with astronaut Richard Garriott from the Challenger Center for Space Science Education See lyvegyde link here.

- December 9th interactive text chat with the author of Odd Girl Out - The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls from PBS Engage See lyvegyde link here.

- November 12th video webcast about Trouble Online: Campus Computing and the Law from the University of Illinois at Springfield See lyvegyde link here.

SUBMIT AN EVENT!

Of course, if you know of a great upcoming free webcast, please submit it to lyvegyde! Almost none of our events require registration, so if an event does require registration, it has to be good! We love webcasts from universities, think tanks, museums, congressional committees, and the like, and of course, feel free to submit webcasts such as concerts and other non-educational events. Simply submit the webcast link (that's all that's required - other details are optional) to lyvegyde or send an event to me at mary@lyvegyde.com.

Inauguration Busy-ness!

2009-01-13T08:19:00.000-08:00

Well, it has gotten quite busy at lyvegyde due to the upcoming inauguration. I've been working on gathering links for inaugural webcasts and I've been coming up with quite a few, even though as usual, details are very difficult to find! I've found articles mentioning that the following sources will have live online coverage - CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, C-SPAN, ABC News, Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, LINKlive (inaugural gala at the Corcoran), and the Presidential Inaugural Committee (Neighborhood Ball with Barack Obama). Some details I have have to "guesstimate" for lyvegyde based on information I have found.

I've found some other references to webcasts, but without details, so I will keep my eye on them. Here's what I've found:

2009 Heroes Red, White and Blue Ball - trying to webcast it - looking for sponsor - will be webcast on Pentagon Channel, but not enough information to tell if this will be live

Radio One - link to a live broadcast and "watch it here," but no details

HBO We are One special - Concert on January 18 in DC - found a reference that they would like to webcast it, but have not found any details - that would be great though, since Bruce Springsteen will be there!!

Anyways, I'm still on the lookout!

Also, it has gotten very busy with confirmation hearings this week. I had links to 5 live hearings earlier today, but unfortunately, CNN Live interrupted coverage of one to show a press conference instead. Anyways, there are four going on now, including Hillary Clinton!

Inauguration - CNN & Facebook

2009-01-09T08:35:00.000-08:00

I am happy because I have finally been finding some information about inaugural webcasts. I figured that CNN Live would have coverage, but they announced that they will be teaming up with facebook for the inauguration. The CNN Live coverage will incorporate facebook status updates on the same page. When you go to the CNN Live website, it says to go to facebook.com/cnn to RSVP for this, so I went ahead and RSVP'd yesterday. The RSVP process was a tiny bit confusing because it has a large graphic arrow pointing to a small event link, but once you click on it you can find the RSVP option. I RSVP'd and it showed up on my facebook page, but then I received an email at 12:16 yesterday saying that Chrissy Blaisdell canceled the event! I have no idea what that was all about! I tried again today though and it seemed to work, so hopefully the webcast will work smoothly on inauguration day.

Digital Built & Twitter

2009-01-07T13:19:00.000-08:00

I was happy to find a blog about webcasts yesterday called Digital Built (www.digitalbuilt.com). Check it out to learn more from Dan Swiney who works in webcasting. He encouraged me to use twitter, so you can find me now under username lyvegyde. Find Dan on twitter under username digitalbuilt.

Inauguration....Where Are You?

2009-01-06T07:40:00.000-08:00

I am pretty excited because the year is off to a great start with lots of interesting events...political, music, dance, sports, ceremonies, etc...the one thing that is missing is the inauguration! It was announced yesterday that Barack Obama's inaugural ball will be webcast. Now, the issue is just finding out any details about the webcast! I haven't found an actual URL or specifics in any of the articles. I am also surprised generally at the lack of details about inaugural event webcasts. I am sure that there will be lots of great events, but I am guessing that details are yet to come.....

Oprah's Best Life Series Starts

2009-01-04T08:32:00.000-08:00

Oprah's Best Life Series starts tomorrow on tv. It lasts all week and then is followed by a week of corresponding webcasts the week of January 12th. I'm looking forward to checking it out to see what it is like.

Macworld (in San Francisco, CA) and the Consumer Electronics Show (in Las Vegas, NV) are also taking place this week, so I am looking forward to webcasts from both of those as well.

Let's hope that 2009 is filled with lots of great webcasts!

New Year's Eve - EarthCam?

2008-12-31T10:05:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year's Eve! I'm excited about the New Year's links that we have on lyvegyde, and I hope that they all pull through!

This morning, the CNN Live website said that they will have coverage starting at 10:00 pm. Now, it says that the coverage started at 9:00 am and it is just showing a webcam of Times Square. I hope that their coverage tonight has actual commentary and is more than a webcam.

Speaking of webcams, I added the EarthCam link to lyvegyde for tonight. I have not added their webcasts in the past since they tend to be just a webcam without additional coverage. Today though, they have webcams from celebrations around the world and their website says that their Times Square webcam coverage will have audio and video. I'm hoping that the audio coverage is clear enough to actually hear performers and announcers. The website says something about a "Times Square Broadcast Special," so we'll see!

Finally, there is a company called New Year's Nation that is hosting parties in 10 cities in the US and they will be webcasting live from each one. I could not find a starting time on their website, so hopefully it will actually work!

On another note, I have found great concert webcasts before on a site called iClips. I remember that they had a great "Election Eve" live concert with Joss Stone. On Halloween night, they had a great Widespread Panic concert. Unfortunately, they did not archive it, but that's ok, it was fun to watch anyways. I was excited then to see that they would have another Widespread Panic concert tonight! When I checked it out though, you have to pay $16.50 to watch it live and they also give you access to the video "well into 2009." I hope that this is not a new trend for iClips! Please keep the live events free! Since the webcast is not free, I did not add it to lyvegyde, but I thought that I would mention it here in case anyone wanted to watch it anyways!

Happy New Year's Eve!

Post-Holiday Pick Up

2008-12-29T08:37:00.001-08:00

Well, it looks like now that Christmas is over, more places are offering webcasts again. It really did slow down there for about a week, but it looks like people are back from their vacations and back to work again. For example, today, lyvegyde has links to webcasts from American University about politics and lobbying, the Governor Blagojevich committee hearing about his possible impeachment, a UN briefing, and other events involving sports, music, and dance. I'm hoping that I'll be able to find some great new year's eve events and that it won't slow down too much again!

Farewell Football

2008-12-23T13:22:00.000-08:00

Well, this weekend was the last of the NFL's regular season game free, live webcasts. The webcasts were an experiment this year for the NFL/NBC, and I hope that they continue them again next year. I actually hope that they even webcast more games since they just webcast the Sunday night NBC games this season. The NFL has also said that the playoffs and the Super Bowl and playoffs will not be webcast live - that would have been very nice!

Generally, I thought that the webcasts were great. They offered multiple cameras that viewers could choose from (or viewers could watch all at once) and other features such as live chats and scores. While I am not a huge football fan myself, I can appreciate that the webcasts were very well produced. Unfortunately, the games were just streamed live (the NFL did not provide archives of the entire game) and could not be watched outside of the US, but maybe those both may change next year too.

NPR Music

2008-12-20T09:19:00.000-08:00

I love the NPR Music webcasts, but they were driving me a little bit crazy yesterday. About a week or so ago, I added a link to their live audio webcast of a Mary Chapin Carpenter holiday concert that was scheduled for yesterday. Their description said that John Flynn would open the concert which I thought was a little suspicious since I know that these concerts are only about 30-40 minutes long. Anyways, yesterday I went to the link and it was only a John Flynn concert and most (but not all) traces of the Mary Chapin Carpenter concert have vanished from their website! The concert was held at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia, which brings me to my second point....

There were also rumors on Chain of Flowers (my favorite website about The Cure) that The Cure would be on World Cafe yesterday as well. Fans on the site were very confused since The Cure is in California right now, not Philadelphia, and there was no information on the NPR Music website. Yesterday, NPR Music posted the "session" that was recorded in Philadelphia in May. It would have been very nice if it had broadcasted live back in May instead of waiting so long. Anyways, it is just very nice that NPR Music recorded the session and has it on their website, even if it wasn't live at the time. I still love the NPR Music webcasts!

Stratford Shakespeare Festival

2008-12-17T07:55:00.000-08:00

I just received a mailing about the Stratford Shakespeare Festival that takes place in Stratford, Ontario throughout 2009. I am excited because on Wednesdays from February 18th through August 26th, they will have live interactive video webcasts with actors and crew from the productions. They have not posted a schedule of events yet, but based on last year's schedule (here), it should be a very good series. I checked out a few from last year and it looks like they were done really well! I can't wait until they post more information for 2009!

Holiday Slowdown?

2008-12-15T07:47:00.001-08:00

I'm wondering if there is beginning to be a slowdown in the number of live webcasts because of the holiday season. First of all, I find a lot of webcasts from colleges and universities, but the semester is just about over. Second, I wonder if other organizations have fewer events this time of year since people take vacation and it is tougher to schedule events. I will just keep looking and try to find more events. At least I have been finding some nice holiday concerts!

Golden Globes and Shameless Plug

2008-12-11T12:13:00.001-08:00

This morning, the Golden Globe nominees were announced. I had listed a webcast on lyvegyde that was supposed to start at 8:00 am ET from Premiere Entertainment. CNN Live listed that their coverage would begin at 8:30 am ET. I listed the Premiere Entertainment link instead since I thought that they would have some additional coverage before the event.

Well, the Premiere Entertainment webcast never happened, and the CNN Live one actually started around 8:15. Premiere Entertainment also does movie premiere coverage and tonight they are showing the Marley & Me premiere. I hope that they actually show it! About a month or so ago, I'm pretty sure that they listed another event that they did not end up showing. I think that they have great events, but it would be really nice if the schedule were updated more frequently if something live is not going to be shown.

I'm wondering if they will have a lab walking the red carpet at the Marley & Me premiere...

As for my shameless plug, check out The Tonight Show tonight - The Cure will be performing!

Oprah's Best Life

2008-12-10T08:20:00.000-08:00

I am pretty excited because Oprah recently announced details for her Best Life webcast series for the week of January 12, 2009. The webcasts will start at 9:00 pm and will follow the previous week's special shows featuring guest experts on topics such as health, money, and fitness.

I am excited because the webcasts will hopefully be very well produced and executed. Unfortunately, I have read that her previous webcast "class" for the book "A New Earth" had so many viewers that some people had problems watching the webcast. I hope that they are able to resolve the technical issues this time.

I am also excited because the webcasts are supposed to be interactive, with Oprah and the guests answering viewer questions. I am not sure yet how this technology will work, but hopefully they will make it pretty clear how to submit a question.

Oprah's website has a link to "register" for the webcasts with your name and email address. Even though I registered, I don't believe that I have received any special emails about the webcasts. I was already on the Oprah mailing list though, so maybe it simply adds people to the mailing list. I am hoping that if users go to the Oprah site on the day of a webcast that they will be able to watch the webcast without registering.

Most of the webcasts we put on lyvegyde do not require any kind of registration. One exception that I can think of is O'Reilly (computer/tech book publisher). They host some interesting webcasts that I like to include, but they do require registration and they send you a special link to access the webcast. It is a little bit of a pain and it may mean that not as many people watch the webcast.

Live Earth India

2008-12-08T12:02:00.000-08:00

Well, this past weekend was my birthday weekend, so I have gotten a little bit behind! Mostly though, there were just lots of home repairs/improvements to take care of. Oh well!

I was really excited because Live Earth India was supposed to take place yesterday, but it was canceled because of the recent terror attacks in Mumbai. Al Gore is one of the main organizers of the Live Earth concert series and yesterday's concert was supposed to feature Bon Jovi. In 2007, Live Earth featured concerts on every continent and over 8 million people watched the live concert webcasts. According to the Live Earth website, "MSN's broadcast of Live Earth attracted the largest-ever online audience for an online concert." Hopefully next year they will schedule another great live webcast!

Christmas Trees Somewhere!

2008-12-04T07:50:00.001-08:00

Yeah! The National Christmas Tree lighting ceremony will be webcast tonight on CNN Live. I am kind of surprised that UStream does not seem to be featuring the tree lighting ceremonies. They seem to be focusing a lot of their attention on puppy cams and now kitten cams. I love puppies and kittens as much as anyone else, but it seems like there are already so many animals in shelters, that maybe they could consider doing something cute with those animals instead of focusing on puppies and kittens from breeders. I understand that it is users who are uploading the videos, but I bet that UStream has enough pull that they could organize something to really help out some animals in need. Just a thought!

Christmas Trees....Anywhere?

2008-12-03T14:39:00.000-08:00

I was able to watch some of last night's Bryant Park tree lighting ceremony, which was very nice. I would LOVE to find a webcast of tonight's tree lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center in NYC, but I cannot find one anywhere. All I can find are webcasts with one fixed angle and no sound. Why, oh why NBC, won't you offer a webcast?

Speaking of the holidays, CNN Live also said that they would have a live webcast this morning of First Lady Laura Bush showing off the White House's holiday decorations. The time for the webcast came and went, but no webcast. Please, more live holiday webcasts, PLEASE!! They are so much fun to watch!

Christmas Trees Everywhere!

2008-12-02T13:55:00.000-08:00

I'm watching the live webcast of the lighting ceremony for the Capitol Christmas Tree in D.C. right now on CNN Live. It really is putting me in a festive mood. There are so many other Christmas tree lighting ceremonies coming up, but I just cannot tell if they are going to be webcast or not! If they are, they certainly are not advertising the fact very widely.

Tonight at 7:00 there is a ceremony for the tree in Bryant Park. That one looks great because the Barenaked Ladies are going to be performing holiday songs. It looks like possibly the local NY CBS station may show the ceremony online, but I have a feeling that I won't really know until 7:00.

Tomorrow, the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree is being lit. It seems like that would have to be webcast, but again, if it is, I am not coming across it easily. Hmmmm...then of course on Wednesday, there is another ceremony that I have not found webcast information about. That is the National Christmas Tree in D.C. As usual, I am hoping that CNN Live will show these at the last minute! Ho ho ho...

Search Engine Optimization

2008-12-01T15:35:00.001-08:00

I just signed up on the Meetup website. I have always been intrigued by the events on the site, and I signed up because I noticed that there is a Search Engine Optimization event this Wednesday in D.C. I am thinking about going since I certainly do have a lot to learn about SEO.

Creating a website is really just one small part of doing a start-up. An even bigger part is getting people who would be interested in using your site to be able to find the site. I have looked into SEO some and I know that there is a lot that I should do in that area. It is just so hard to find enough time in the day to do everything that I want to do with the website on top of everything that I HAVE to do with the website to keep it running on a daily basis. Anyways, baby steps as Dr. Leo Marvin would say...

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T05:52:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Well, I still have not come across any live, online coverage of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade except for Earthcam. I was really hoping that CNN Live would cover it at the last minute, since they do not always list what they are going to cover until the time that the event starts. Actually, sometimes they just show the video and don't actually list what the event is.

Last night CNN Live listed that they would show the balloons being inflated at 5:00 pm ET. It said next to the caption "in progress," but there was never a video showing the event. Then at 6:00, they took down the event listing. Of course, I had found a couple of websites with people asking where online they could watch the balloons being inflated, and I had said CNN Live. Oops! It has happened to me quite a few times with CNN Live where events that they list as coming up never actually are shown. Pretty frustrating, but oh well. They always have a lot of great videos, so I still love their site.

Hmmmm, update! I just checked back at CNN Live and now a caption says Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but it is next to a video of Space Shuttle Endeavor coverage. I have also noticed that where the captions and the videos do not always match. YEAH!!!!!!! They just fixed it, so now they have parade coverage!!!!!!!!!!! SUPER!!!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is coming!

2008-11-25T11:02:00.000-08:00

Well, I have been getting ready for Thanksgiving over the past couple of days. It seems like there are fewer events this week because of the holiday. I guess that everybody will be eating of shopping on Thursday and Friday! Well, hopefully people will still go shopping despite the economy. I have been trying to find information on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but I haven't really found anything about a live webcast. I did find this article from last year which notes that there are a lot of Americans living abroad who would probably be interested in watching the parade live. The Earthcam website will provide webcam coverage of parade. For lyvegyde though, we are not looking for webcam coverage - we are looking for actual event coverage. Apparently last year, the camera lenses were blurred with raindrops. Also, the webcam coverage would not provide the commentary provided by the parade announcers. Anyways, hopefully next year there will be an actual webcast, or at least, maybe closer to Thanksgiving this year, CNN Live will provide a link...we'll see!

I have a lot to be thankful for this year, as every year, and I have been so saddened by the stories about Abraham Briggs. Please take time to read the New York Times article about him. It is a tragic waste of a human life and the most horrendous use of live online video that I can imagine. I have been thinking about what to say about this, but all that I can say is that my thoughts are with his family and I hope that this never happens again.

Back to Normal

2008-11-21T11:43:00.000-08:00

Thank goodness, Freecaster.tv is back up. Universal Sports is still working. Also, as a nice treat, C-SPAN's streaming video has been working on my computer for the last 2 days. I have a MacBook and I was never able to use it to watch their streaming videos - I always had to use our HP laptop. My brother had the same issue with his MacBook. Anyways, for some reason, C-SPAN has worked on both of our laptops for the past 2 days. Very nice!!

I'm looking forward to a webcast that is starting in about 45 minutes. It is a concert for a band called Liquid Souls from a website called FabChannel. The website is based out of the Netherlands and they show live concerts from a concert hall called the Paradiso in Amsterdam. I have listed their live concerts by Living Colour and The Levellers on lyvegyde. I have been so impressed with these concerts (high quality performance, interesting music, good camera footage, etc...) that I am going to add more of these concerts. Today's concert is a Dutch hip-hop/soul band that is popular in Europe. Should be interesting!

Yeah!

2008-11-20T17:50:00.000-08:00

Universal Sports is back up now, yeah! Freecaster.tv is still down though. What is going on?

Universal Sports...what is going on???

2008-11-20T09:48:00.000-08:00

OK, I am really starting to worry now about Universal Sports. Their website has not been working (all that appears is a white page) since at least yesterday morning. Please don't take this website away, I love it!!!

Another sports website with live video webcasts that I really enjoy is Freecaster.tv. (It is kind of ironic because I just went to their website at it says "sorry, our website is not available for the moment due to a technical maintenance." I am assuming that it will come back to life in a few minutes....I hope!!!) Anyways, their focus is "action sports," such as BMX and skateboarding, which can be a ton of fun to watch. Unfortunately, they do not give as many specifics about their webcasts in advance of the events, so it can be a little bit unclear what time events start and exactly what they will be showing. They have some BMX and skateboarding events coming up on Saturday, but I will wait until then to add them to lyvegyde, just to make sure that the events are starting when I think that they are. I did post one of their events for this Saturday which is a concert by The Offspring. I am looking forward to that - it really takes me back to the '90s! :)

OK, Freecaster.tv is not back up yet....Where is it? Come back!

Social Matchbox and Universal Sports...again!

2008-11-19T10:40:00.000-08:00

I know that I just said that I love Universal Sports, but then I get this today..."we are currently experiencing technical difficulties with this site." NOOOOOOOOO! The site has been down for several hours now. I hope that it comes back up very soon - I had a hockey webcast on my website! Oh well. :)

Well, I am glad that I went to Social Matchbox last night. I was able to meet a few people and the presentations were interesting - some companies that were well established and others that were just getting started and some in between. Maybe I should have given a presentation. Maybe next time! Back to lyvegyde now!

Social Matchbox DC

2008-11-17T14:31:00.000-08:00

I'm signed up now to go to Social Matchbox DC tomorrow night at American University. I am going as a "socializer" - apparently different types of attendees receive different color name badges. It sounds like there will be lots of product demos and presentations by internet and technology entrepreneurs. I figured that it is definitely worth checking out at least once (they hold the event every quarter) to see what it is like.

On another note, I added a link to the website today with the first post-election Senate session. I was hoping that it would be pretty exciting, but there are such HUGE gaps in time between all of the "action," I just don't know that I will add any more Senate sessions...

Universal Sports

2008-11-16T09:48:00.001-08:00

Well, I'm watching another live webcast of ice speed skating now. I am really impressed with the live webcasts that Universal Sports offers...

First, they archive almost all of their events. They usually have an archive of the entire event as well as archives of various highlights from the event. (Ouch! One of the skaters just crashed! I hope that he is ok!). They also usually post the archived events pretty soon after the event has ended.

Second, the webcasts have a very high production quality. They provide great commentary and graphics with scores, and different camera angles - it is clear that they put a lot of effort into the broadcast. True, they do also have a tv channel where they show a lot of the broadcasts, but still, a lot of sports events on other tv channels are not shown live online. Also, on the Universal Sports website, they are able to show more than one live event at a time, even though they can only show one at a time on their television channel.

Third, the website is very easy to navigate. They make it clear exactly what events are coming up, when the event will take place, and where to click to watch the webcast. It is surprising how difficult it can be to find detailed information like that on other sites. Sometimes a website lists that they will have a live event coming up soon, but it is unclear how to navigate to the actual webcast or sometimes even what time the webcast will begin!

Well, I guess that I should go now since the event just ended!

Today's Webcasts

2008-11-14T17:38:00.000-08:00

Well, today I especially enjoyed watching some of the webcasts listed on lyvegyde. The space shuttle Endeavor just launched and that was really cool to watch as it happened. Earlier in the day, there was also some ice speed skating that was pretty enjoyable. I also like following the political type events such as hearings and speeches. There were a couple of those today that were pretty interesting. I just don't think that I can add any more events tonight though. There is always so much stuff going on, that it really is difficult to keep up with all of it! I find most of the events for now while we are building up our user base. We have had some user submitted events though that we have just loved! I guess if instantly finding users were easy though, there wouldn't be a market for things like GirlInYourShirt.

Ok, on an unrelated note. Why would Boston Market ever take stuffing off of their menu? I went there recently and it had been removed from their menu, they had not just run out of it. It had also been removed several years ago for a little bit of time. Of course because Thanksgiving is coming, it is back now, but please....don't ever take it off again! I am a huge side item sampler fan...stuffing, mashed potatoes, and another side with lots of carbohydrates!

CNN Live

2008-11-12T12:10:00.000-08:00

I'm a pretty big fan of CNN Live webcasts, even though I don't think that everything they show is live. It seems like quite a few things that they show are actually pre-recorded news tidbits. They do stream a lot of live events (hearings, speeches, conferences, breaking news, etc...) though. I just wish that they kept archives of everything that they show. Anyways, they have a new contest where you can submit a picture of yourself watching CNN Live on your laptop in an unusual location.

The website for the contest is www.wheredoyouwatchlive.com. The grand prize is a Slingbox Pro which is a device that lets you watch your video sources such as DVR or DVDs on your laptop or cell phone. If only I ever had the chance to watch live webcasts on a mountaintop and not on my couch!

Right now I'm on my couch watching a webcast that is listed on my site www.lyvegyde.com about how exercise affects the brain. I'm trying not to feel too guilty about not exercising more! My husband and I love to run, but we have not been as consistent about running lately as it is getting colder and we have some aches and pains. We did go for a 2 mile jog last night, but I was pretty slow! Oh well, I guess that it is better than nothing!

Welcome to lyvegyde!

2008-11-11T14:12:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody! Welcome to lyvegyde - my blog about the world of live webcasts and life as a newbie entrepreneur. I'm Mary Stevens and I'm the co-founder of a new website (www.lyvegyde.com), a guide to live online events. The other co-founder is my brother Will Byrd. He did most of the programming for the site (I helped out as much as I could along the way...learning some Ruby on Rails, HTML, CSS, etc.). My focus is more on finding links to interesting events. We also LOVE to have users submit events that we haven't come across yet.

Together, we created the site as a central place to find links to interesting live webcasts, web chats, and other events that are broadcast live on the internet. We have listed links to all kinds of great events since we launched about a month ago, and we have links to some really cool events that are coming up in the future. Will had the idea for the site after finding that there were some really interesting events happening live online, but also finding that it was sometimes difficult to find information about them.

Anyways, I'll be writing more about the things I discover in the world of live webcasts as well as my day-to-day life running a website!