Oprah's Best Life Series Starts

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?

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

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

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

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

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?

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!