Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome to the guide to Live. It's Friday, October 18. This is your weekly hangout to join us to talk about live streaming with people who really know what it's like.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: Because let's face it, no one really knows what you're talking about if you say you're a live streamer.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: Yeah, but we do. So, I'm Tara, and across from me is my co host Ben, and together we make up your guide to live.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: So on today's podcast, we discover that viewer funded live streaming industries like TikTok Live and YouTube Live or Twitch, have a decision to make.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: Oh yeah?
[00:00:42] Speaker B: How best to approach accepting brand and advertising so traditional ads and brand funded entertainment on tv and the movies resulted in prioritizing content that meets the brand's requirements of a mass audience. However, as we discover, live streaming is based on a variety of streamers entertaining the same mass audience. But there's tens or hundreds of thousands of them. Yeah, the platforms need variety to work. So here's our question. Could adding brand money too fast break the whole live model, or can we have both with some smart, creative approaches?
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Let's find out.
How do you like that weather? That weather, that weather it's getting crisp in the air it's autumnal. Autumnal.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: I thought you were about to sing oh come or she faithful.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I usually do break into song because anything you say reminds me of a lyric of a song and then I want to sing it.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: That's the problem of having an exceptional memory. Your memory is too good.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: That's the problem with having ADHD. That's what that is.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: It also manifests for you in compulsive or impulsive naming of people on tv shows and movies.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: Actors in shows and movies. I'm like, oh, this is so and so from this show, remember?
Oh, and this is this person from this show, remember.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: What is going through your mind when that's happening?
[00:02:12] Speaker A: As soon as I see their face, it's like facial recognition files. It's like a bunch of files of faces just go in my brain.
[00:02:20] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: And then I'm like. And then these little, like, lines are pointing to different movies and things. I'm like, where did I see them first? Okay, and they've been in that and they've been in that and they've been in that. And it all happens within a microsecond, right? Yeah.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: So can I describe what's happening in my head when I'm watching the show?
[00:02:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: It's just like, I believe that the actor is the character and that's it. I'm just watching the show.
[00:02:42] Speaker A: I get that, too. I feel that same exact thing. There's, like, layers. There's, like a layer.
[00:02:47] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: So the thing. The first thing we described is like that is this, like deeper layer of what's happening in my subconscious.
My conscious brain, though, is teetering between that. It's like. It's like, got 1ft in that pond and then the other foot in my actual full consciousness. So it's like, I cannot. It's a compulsion.
[00:03:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: It's like an OCD thing. And it's. It's another thing. It's like another part of my neurodivergence, in my experience.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: So watching a show. Can I describe watching a show with terrorism?
[00:03:20] Speaker A: I was waiting. I thought, literally, I thought that's what you were actually going to do when you said, can I tell you what's going on in my brain? Because I'm watching a show?
[00:03:27] Speaker B: It's kind of interesting.
It's like being fully absorbed in another world and then having someone say, do you remember this other world that we were in six months ago or six years ago, and that person was playing, like, an ood in Doctor who? And now I've got a picture of. There's this one show I'm watching in the current time, and now I'm picturing them with, like, ood tentacles as well.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: Ooh, oodles of noodles. Yeah. And here's the big. The kicker is, whenever I find a doctor who character person, an actor that's played a part in Doctor who, I'm like, oh, that's like, golden. Like, oh, this was, this. This was so and so and doctor who.
[00:04:13] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:13] Speaker B: It's funny how different heads work, isn't it?
[00:04:15] Speaker A: I know.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: It really is, like, what triggers things.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. Everyone is different. I was gonna say, that's what makes us all individuals.
[00:04:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:24] Speaker B: I don't think that. That. Well, it feels maybe that's being celebrated more and more now, but it has been something that's lacked, particularly in education, in my experiences, like, everyone. Well, maybe it's just because how people get educated. It's like the industrial revolution.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Like everyone standardized way of getting educated.
[00:04:43] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: Which makes sense. Like, it's a. It's one solution to the problem of, how do you teach a load of people the same stuff. Yeah, but it hasn't really been updated because the range of stuff and the things that people need seems very different now.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it is different. It's very much. I actually had a conversation with somebody the other day. Talking about different types of education within the the United States because they have children and they're thinking about putting them in. Like, they're young, they're not in.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: They're in the, like, what shall I do?
[00:05:14] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. And they're like, well, there's charter schools, there's private schools, there's public schools, there's homeschooling. It's like, where do you go? It's like they're all so different because, you know, there used to not be those because it was like, oh, you have kids, they go to school now. It's like, what kind of kid do you have? What are your child's interests? What type of personality does your child have? What best fits your child's educational needs? You know, it's like the Montessori method. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
[00:05:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Variety would be nice.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: I wish they had that when we were growing up.
[00:05:49] Speaker B: Maybe AI ends up solving this because in theory, it could provide, like, a totally personalized experience of education.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: Yeah. You could have your own personalized tutor.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: There's still the problem as, like, being a kid, the bit of, like, learning how to learn that still seems like.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: Such a missing piece, something that I don't think you can learn from school. Like, that's something that I think needs to be instilled when you're young.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Right.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: From, like, your family. It's like a thing you learn because you need to learn as a child from, like, don't touch fire, you know, like, that's. You're learning. So it's like, there needs to be.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: That'S learning not to do something wrong. But I'm saying the skill of, like, I need, I need to learn consist constantly through my thinking skills.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: And I think that's the thing that we're not worth. That's what's not being taught.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: Is the critical thinking.
[00:06:43] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: And that's what I think. It's like, it's left up to the family to teach that to their children now. Yeah, but, yeah, all about live streaming.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: All about live streaming. That idea of it being individualized, that is, it is reminiscent of what is the core underlying thing that drives livestream.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Yes. It is a very individualized thing.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: Right?
[00:07:08] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: It's kind of like. That's a little bit of what makes it special when you really think about it.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: We talk about the idea of if monoculture is dying.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: Which is a very big statement.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: It is a big statement, but it is true.
[00:07:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: I see every day, maybe we keep dying every day.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Maybe we can break that down in a second, like, what we mean by that.
But that concept that live streaming is appealing to a lot of separate individual tastes.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: Is kind of what makes it magical. The idea that you would have tens or hundreds of thousands of live streamers that are, if you think of it from just a. From a pure industry standpoint, they're providing entertainment to masses of people.
[00:07:54] Speaker A: Yeah, they are.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: Versus what came before is a small number of people or shows providing entertainment to a large number of people. Yeah, that's the change that's happened.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: And you know what else is changing is those eyes that are watching the shows that are being provided versus watching the live streams. There's more. I switching to the live streaming now. That's taking over the other, the other, the other form of entertainment.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: I've seen some numbers that it's comparing countries who were established in live streaming and how, like, their box office, their traditional box office number, which was once the large pie of where money was coming from. Entertainment is now tiny, and all of the money is in live streaming and not gaming. Live streaming only, even though that in itself is massive because it was early, but, like, live streamed entertainment across the board, like, that's where people's dollars or whatever currency they're using is going right now. And the US, and, like, the UK is rapidly following it.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think the reason why is because, like you said, there's, the masses are switching to live streaming, but that, because they're. It's, there's, it's not like there's a mass of people watching one or two things. There's a mass of people finding their own little niche.
[00:09:18] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: And they're watching it, and there's more of the, there's more like individualized entertainment out there.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it's cool. So what's your, what's your favorite thing right now?
[00:09:28] Speaker A: I love.
[00:09:29] Speaker B: What's your favorite thing?
[00:09:30] Speaker A: Okay. Something I've been watching for a while that I'm enjoying is, is the franc, I've watched the Franc from just develop over time, and right now what he's doing is cutting edge. It is so amazing.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: Right.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: And it's just like every, every night I'm like, what? I don't know what to expect. I know it's gonna be good.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: Have you seen his new intro?
He's got like a. It's like, well, you have to just watch it, but just make sure you're there at the start of Frank shows to experience it. Hey, that's the beauty of life right now. But it's like an, it's like a half part animated part video. Literally, it's a hybrid video sequence. Sequence that he kind of, like, comes out of. It's like kind of Simpsonsy with clouds sometimes.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: It's an experience if you've not. If you are looking for a new experience on live streaming, that's kind of interactive and immersive. It's very interactive and very immersive. This is it.
The other thing I think that I am finding is ASMR. Like, I keep coming back to ASMr. I get away from it, from it because I can only handle it for a little while. But I do love it. And the reason I keep coming back to it is because there's new triggers that keep showing up out of nowhere. Like, people keep inventing the creativity within that niche.
[00:10:48] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: Is so, like, mind blowing. It's amazing.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: Is amazing.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: So I was just, I mean, I wasn't even expecting you to kind of go for, like, the whole, like, a whole niche, like ASMR as an example of something that's kind of, you're getting back into because there's then hundreds or thousands of amazing ASMR artists who are doing it, and you can kind of take your pick through this time. So variety is king.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: I love it. I love variety. I'm not the kind of person, and I think a lot of people are like this. I'm not saying, you know, I'm special because I think that I'm just like a lot of people out there. I can't just watch the same thing all the time. I need variety to be stimulated.
[00:11:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: Options as well.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: I love options.
[00:11:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: And I love to be just. I love to get new things served to me that I've not seen before, which is why I love this, that the platform of TikTok live, or just.
[00:11:45] Speaker B: Like, live streaming in general, where you're interacting, here's the part that we're not really talking about, which plays into it a lot, is the community element, that it is not just passive viewing, it is building communities and being part of communities and friendships and things like that. And there is.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: Has to be a limit to the scale of that. Like, as a host or as a community leader, a live streamer. That's what you are. You're a community leader. Like, you know, you can't have a. You can't have 10 million people in your street.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: You can't, because you can't.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: You're not able to manage that.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: You cannot manage that. And in order to do that, you'd have to hire someone to do it. And therefore, it defeats the purpose of why that all those people are there to begin with is because they want that connection with the host.
[00:12:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: So the whole business model is that there is way more entertainers in comparison to basically all traditional media up until now, which is, which is designed to get eyes. But there were way less channels, literally channels of entertainment.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: And different shows or entertainers.
[00:12:55] Speaker A: Your tubes.
[00:12:56] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: You're like, you like to call those tubes, the tubes out to people.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The pipes of entertainment. There was very few of them.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: Now there's.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: But jillion, I think there are reasons for it as well. Like it's how the models are funded.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: Mm hmm. Yeah.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: So if live streaming is essentially, currently basically a hundred percent viewer funded.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: Viewer funded.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Whether that's subscriptions on in a twitch, like, you twitch kind of way or gifs on a tick tock live kind of way or like.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: Or subscriptions on. Both.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: Yeah, kind of. Some version of. I was just using those two as examples. Like, one is heavier is the primary in the same way as Netflix as well, up until very, very recently was only subscription based on.
[00:13:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: What has happened in the entertainment industry up until now is branding and advertising. Money is the primary source of income.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: I feel like, weren't television shows, like, basically written and designed for advertising?
[00:13:57] Speaker B: I mean, you watch Mad Men. We watched a big chunk of it together, but I know you've seen the whole thing and that. Isn't that the story?
[00:14:04] Speaker A: Yeah. So it was radio, like radio shows first, wasn't it? It's like the radio.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: So this is the history. Okay. Bing, bing. History lesson.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: So radio shows came out and they had these shows designed around products, and they would do a little skit show off the product, and the skit of why it would be relevant, why it would change your life. And next thing you know, I got to buy that product. But that's how that's. It gets the. It's entertained you, and then it also teaches you there's a product that's going to make your life so much better.
[00:14:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: Or here's a picture of a lifestyle that you should strive to achieve.
[00:14:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: And I know Mad Men itself is a tv show, but they were depicting well.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: It was based off of a true story of what really happened in history.
[00:14:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: And the advertising agencies or the Mad Men. Cause they lived on.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: No, they worked on Madison.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: Madison Avenue.
[00:14:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:56] Speaker B: In New York. Like, that was where the industry first popped up. Cause it didn't exist one day. And then it did exist.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: It became a form of, like, art using manipulation with photos in action movies.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: Yeah, it sure does a good job of, like, kind of, I mean, they're like, terrible people as well, but there is this, like, beautiful bit where they are kind of, like, mixing art.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: It's like, it is art and that.
[00:15:21] Speaker B: But they also are, like, stepping way over the line of what's appropriate because they don't know where the line is exactly.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: It's like, oh, we've just discovered this, this massive way of manipulating and influencing the masses to buy things.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: Yeah. And it just started off like, it was like, the basic thing is this is like, just put a sexy lady on a thing, smoking a cigarette. It's like, that's your advert. And it, like, worked for a minute.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's why it's different from movies, because, like, movies are different. Like, movies were entertaining, but then tv came around and it was always like, it's like, oh, are you hungry? Well, here's some delicious coffee.
[00:16:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: Blah, blah, blah brand, you know, whatever.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: So if, if I was just looking up while you were talking them.
[00:16:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:09] Speaker B: So, yeah, I can sometimes. So there's, there's a study from the Journal of Advertising back in 2018 highlighting the fact that ad supported content tends to prioritize broad appeal, often sacrificing creative risks in favor of maintaining high viewer numbers.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that makes sense out. Yeah, it makes sense.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: Think box. Thinkbox is 2019 tv report show that tv shows designed to cater to advertisers often use safer, more predictable content that attracts mass audiences, which could stifle unique storytelling and niche content.
So none of that. Wrong. That's like, they are. The model is they take money from somebody who's trying to sell a product, and the trade is the money goes into making entertainment that entertains as many people as possible through that one channel.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: Right. That big pipe.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: But don't, you know, like, reading these things out? This seems counter to live streaming if live streaming's basic business model is lots of different niche things to entertain the same. The same mass of people to entertain the masses.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: Individually. Yeah, semi individually. Semi individually on a community level. Because it's like, go find your community. Go find your people. And that's what it is. It's like, it's almost like tribes. It's like tribal. It's like you have the tribe, you have the, the tribal leader, which is the host, and then you have your tribe, which is the community. And it's, it could only be so big before it gets imbalanced and that's just human nature. This is like sociology. You know, like there is a science behind the amount of people. So I think that this does check out 100%. And this is almost like the. We always go back to the thousand true fans.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, it's a guy called Kevin Kelly who was the editor of Wired magazine.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: Theories based on the idea that most people will have a thousand fans who are extremely devoted to their work, he was projecting into the future.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:18:17] Speaker B: And the rule, the theory is like a, if a creator has a thousand true fans who are basically defining a fan as someone who's a willing to buy everything they produce, and they can earn an average of a $100 profit from each fan per year, they can earn a sustainable income. This is literally what we did on the calculator last night.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: This is what?
[00:18:36] Speaker B: That's 100 grand a year.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: Thousand fans each.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: I see this happening already.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: I would say we currently work with hundreds and hundreds of people who are.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: Literally doing this now. It's this. Well, okay, so this person predicted this.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Uh huh.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: Did they get struck by lightning or something? Because they are dead on.
[00:18:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: Did they have a crystal ball?
[00:18:59] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. It says here in their Wikipedia page, also known for time travel.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Yeah.
[00:19:04] Speaker B: Time traveled into the future of 2030, saw the future and then came back and then wrote it in Wired magazine.
They'd intended to come back to 2024 and do it over livestream, which would have been more impactful, but they had to go back to 2018 when. When it was still print magazines.
[00:19:23] Speaker A: And don't believe. Don't believe what he's saying right now. Yeah, he's. He's joshing you.
[00:19:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: So is it. I mean, it does say an average of a $100 profit from each fan per year.
[00:19:33] Speaker A: So on average, though, that's average.
[00:19:36] Speaker B: Yeah, on average. But here's the thing. It was difficult previously. If you take almost any other kind of art form or any kind of. It's not an art form, it's an entertainment form.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: It was hard to get hundred dollars profit out of it because there was a lot of costs involved as well.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: My God, the overhead.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: The overhead was massive. Whereas live streaming, that overhead now is basically zero. As long as you have an iPhone or you have an app.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: A device. A device, a streaming device.
[00:20:06] Speaker B: I don't like to say it's zero, but it basically, if you have a phone, you can do it.
[00:20:12] Speaker A: Yeah. It's not zero because you have to, you have to have a phone, you have to pay for the service. You have to pay for the electricity to charge it, you have to pay for the electricity to light your room.
[00:20:20] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: Like, but compare that to being a musician. Even on the lowest level, it might.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: As well be zero. Right.
[00:20:27] Speaker B: Or a comedian or somebody. Whatever it all had cost.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Hey, are you a musician or an artist out there that wants to go on the road and tour again? Guess what? You can do it from the convenience of your own home.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: Yeah. You can be home for dinner every night because it's upstairs.
[00:20:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And you don't have to pay for a tour manager.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And the tour manager can also be a live streamer and talk about their life and talk about. Yeah, they may have. They have fascinating insights into travel and exploration around the world. Like this. Their skill can still be applied.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: It's the, this. It's being communicated and the value exchanges in a different arena.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: It's so cool. Yeah, it is so cool.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: So this is maybe another industry warning.
[00:21:19] Speaker A: It's like, oh, can I just remind you what it. This. Okay, so I get this, like, big vision in my head of, like, a memory of what we experienced when we went to the Coca Cola factory, when they opened up those doors and they were like, try any Coca Cola product from anywhere in the entire world. Remember we were sick afterwards? But it was like, that's kind of what I think about when you're talking. That's what I see. It's like all of those varieties of sodas or, like, different types of live streamers out there.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: And why does it work? It's because it's, like we said, literally at the start of this, everybody is so different. And it's recognizing that everybody is different because making something that goes to the masses is literally the mainstream and therefore diluted in terms of the actual core quality of the thing. Because it's intended to appeal to as many people as possible.
It's not its fault. It's blander.
[00:22:17] Speaker A: It's just designed that way to it because it has a target audience to hit. It has, like, a mass target.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: And so it's designed that way to hit as many, like, eyes and grab as much attention as possible from the masses.
[00:22:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:32] Speaker A: It's like a big gamble, but, but because it's a gamble, they're, they're like, okay, well, what's the safest bet? Let's make it this way and this way and this way so that we know for sure that it's possibly going to be really good. You know what I mean?
[00:22:44] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: And then with that being high risk, it's just like, okay, well, now you've kind of totally changed the whole storyline and the way it looks and feels, and it's not even what. Yeah, it's. Now it's just designed for.
[00:22:57] Speaker B: I mean, we even did this. So on a. On a small scale, but in on live, we ran the match battle league, which was a league which we got sponsorship from G fuel.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: Yep, we sure did. A nine week.
[00:23:14] Speaker B: Nine week match battle campaign. People had jerseys. The prize was $10,000.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: Provided by g four. Sponsored by G four. The match Bassel league sponsored by G Fuel. Right. And that was cool, except even with that relatively small partnership, it came with requirements in that the final minute needed to be called.
[00:23:36] Speaker A: I forget, like, the G fuel minute.
[00:23:38] Speaker B: The G fuel power or something.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: Yeah. It was like every. The last minute of every.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: Which is fine. That that's what they're paying for. Except what it does on live streaming is make it feel more inauthentic than it actually is. And I would argue, I think the viewer part of the reason why it didn't kind of, like, connect is because we started to put these rules in place to please the person or the brand that was looking to put the money in. It's like the metrics and the measurements all need to be different. The requirements from the brand need to be different.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:24:12] Speaker B: Maybe more passive, just drinking G fuel.
[00:24:15] Speaker A: Yeah, might. That's more powerful. They think that that is what would have been more powerful. Like, I don't think you have to push products on someone's throat to sell them. If you like them and you enjoy them and you feel like you can endorse that product.
[00:24:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: Then you just need to have that product present during your experience with your community, and they will naturally say, hmm, what are you drinking there? Or someone might ask, or they just might go and get it, try it, because they were curious themselves. There you go. That's how it works.
[00:24:45] Speaker B: It's also pressing up against the viewer funded model as well. That the matches and the excitement being generated is something that the viewers were paying to be part of. It almost highlights the difficulty of putting it in. So when you were talking just then, I looked up two more studies.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Okay. Why did you look up?
[00:25:04] Speaker B: So these ones are on the other side of it. Like, what impact does the viewer funded model have? Okay, so a 2022 Pew Research center study on twitch. Pew, pew. Pew. They found that creators with direct funding from viewers were more likely to create personalized and community driven content and felt less pressured to chase trends and mass appeal.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: Okay. All right. Well, that seems normal.
[00:25:32] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that makes sense.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: In itself, it's like, entertain the, the community that you, and that you started off entertaining to begin with.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: And in itself, actually, that's why it's been difficult to be a live streamer, because of. Because that's what makes it successful. But if the whole zeitgeist is switching, like, the whole business model of live streaming needs these people.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: They need people who are likely to create personalized, community driven content and feel less pressure to trace trends and mass appeal. Because mass appeal would equal a lot of viewers being entertained by a few people, which is counter to the whole model.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: Exactly. It wouldn't work.
[00:26:16] Speaker B: Here's another one. A study from Digital Culture and Society 2020 observed that platforms relying on subscription models like Netflix produce more genre pushing content, and because they're not tied to advertisers demand, but rather to view a satisfaction.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: So that's. I like that.
[00:26:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: That's one of the reasons I switch. I stopped watching, like, cable television and switched to the streaming platforms.
[00:26:39] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: To watch those types of shows because I liked certain things that I didn't find on the other network television. Yeah.
[00:26:47] Speaker B: And Netflix. Netflix is a good example. It's only really in the last, what would you say, year that they've added adverts. They didn't take a advertising money at all for. Until recently. It's like ten years or however long they've existed.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: They've existed for way longer than that, I think at least 16 years.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: So that's to say that they. So they've decided to add it in. But that is because they've built a trusted core user base who are going on and expecting the quality. And now the question they're going to have to answer is, like, does the range and the variety stick around? Now they're taking branded branding and advertising.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: Well, you know, like, I. I don't know. I think I feel like some of the shows that I really liked that because they, Netflix, as an example, was always pushing the envelope with, like, kind of weird stuff. And then, you know, I think now they're less. There's less tolerance for that now and they will cut that show out of there. It's just, I don't see those shows anymore. Like, one show, what really loved it was. It was the same people who did darken, you know, that. That.
[00:27:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:27:52] Speaker A: German time travel, the one where there's.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: The, there's like a gravity pool or something in. Under the cake, under the ground and they. Time travel.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: Yeah. They go for. It's like a cave. And if you go in this one door, you go out 33 years into the past. If you go here, you go in 33 years.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Specific.
[00:28:10] Speaker A: Yeah. It was like, different. It was different. Yeah. But. But they had this other show. It was so cool. I was like. It was like 18 something. It was like they were all on this, like, victorian cruise ship. It was really cool. And then it got it.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: Oh, we got canned, didn't it? Didn't those articles about that? It was like that. It was too literally too risky. Too risky for whoever was deciding.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: Yeah. And so that, I think that is where the having the brand partnership or the brand sponsorship is like, kind of.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: Affecting in the little, maybe leaning on them to make. It's like they need to hold more viewers on single shows for longer. So when the ad comes up during it, the ads, more or more valuable.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: Something.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Something.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:28:58] Speaker B: You just got attacked by a cat. With a cat.
[00:29:01] Speaker A: By a cat. I got attacked by a cat from a cat. And if you're wondering how that's possible, it's because we have a stuffed cat, which is Leo the lion.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:12] Speaker A: Is it Leah or Leon?
[00:29:14] Speaker B: I think it's.
[00:29:15] Speaker A: Is it two of them?
[00:29:16] Speaker B: Leon is the big. Is the daddy. Is the daddy gift on TikTok live.
[00:29:21] Speaker A: That you got and Leon's the little one, isn't it?
[00:29:23] Speaker B: You want it. A gift at global life.
[00:29:25] Speaker A: You wanted it and gave it to me like you were at a fairground.
[00:29:28] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: Yes. It was so romantic.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: And he. Well, and it's Leonid, but he's got a leather collar and a gold tips logo.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: Logo. And he's on the shelf behind me. And then our actual cat came up and just knocked Leon onto me. So the cat knocked the cat onto me.
[00:29:44] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:29:44] Speaker B: Studio cat.
[00:29:45] Speaker A: Studio cat.
[00:29:48] Speaker B: So what are we saying here? Because this is kind of pretty deep stuff.
[00:29:51] Speaker A: Way there's like a. There's pros and cons to both, but it seems like there's more cons with one than the other.
[00:29:59] Speaker B: What depends what you want.
[00:30:00] Speaker A: It depends on what the goal is. I guess the maybe creativity and creative control as an artist delivering to your actual, like, like, audience, then I feel like getting the advertising based model isn't probably not best for you.
[00:30:17] Speaker B: Yeah, it definitely gets some. It's definitely going to set up a set of requirements.
[00:30:22] Speaker A: Depends on what you want.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: I think this is more like an industry call out. I feel like we've done this twice now.
[00:30:27] Speaker A: Here we go again.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: I think we need to generally like that. We need to be cautious about it because our experience of just adding even some branded money into a live stream environment, definitely there's a ripple effect with the viewer funded side of it and it changed the entertainment. Here's a newer report from streamlabs. Streamlabs report from 2023. So just last year showed that live streaming's growth, particularly on platforms like Twitch, is fueled by the sheer variety of content.
Over 70% of Twitch users stated that they watch specific streamers because their content aligns with their personal interests.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: Yep. Individualized.
[00:31:08] Speaker B: Uh huh. So you need loads and loads of them that you get the mass market from an industry perspective by having loads of them.
[00:31:15] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:31:16] Speaker B: So each of them is trying to please an advertiser, then they broaden out their audience and it kind of, you know, there's only so many viewers. So, so you either have one or the other. Yeah, yeah.
[00:31:31] Speaker A: Interesting. This is a fun topic today.
[00:31:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it is a fun topic. It really is.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: I mean, well, to, to advertise or not to advertise?
[00:31:41] Speaker B: To advertise or not to advertise or how to do it.
[00:31:43] Speaker A: Right.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: I mean, maybe advertisers need to trust the creative and this move to like, there has been a shift like UGC, short form.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: Right. Has been, yes.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: Those creators have been well accepted and there is brand acknowledgement that you get lots of people to talk about your message, but to some extent you trust what each of them does in their own right.
[00:32:06] Speaker A: You trust that they're the expert in their field.
[00:32:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:09] Speaker B: And you don't necessarily control the quality of the content, even the quality of the video or anything, because you've trusting that that person can hit their niche audience thousand times better than the brand ever could. Nice stasis.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: I just sneezed. Yeah, no, they do. They know exactly how to hit their audience more than the brands do because they are with their, they're with their community all the time.
[00:32:36] Speaker B: I guess the only problem there is on the UGC world, the money that they were receiving as creators for video views was just coming from the platform, which in itself was either funded by the platform or by a brand.
[00:32:52] Speaker A: Yes, exactly.
[00:32:53] Speaker B: Whereas live streaming is exactly the same, other than the money comes from a viewer to the person and splits with.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: The platform at that point, which that reminds me of because I know a lot of people who were in with the, with TikTok's creator program where they were getting funded for their videos. I know they were like, oh, we're doing great, we're making so much money. Then all of a sudden, like over time, as the platform got bigger.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:20] Speaker A: The amount of money they were getting was smaller and smaller.
[00:33:22] Speaker B: Right. And the fund itself dries and like that. That's true on all different platforms.
So they prime the pumps by putting in a fund.
[00:33:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:32] Speaker B: Which goes to the creators with the idea that then advertising prime the lines, those pre rolls that you see on Instagram or YouTube, tick tock YouTube as well. But TikTok that shows up sometimes when you log in, there's an ad there that revenue is going through and going out to creators based on those programs.
So again, now the content has to appease the person that's trying to sell the iPhone or the this or the that. So the control steps in there.
[00:34:05] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:34:05] Speaker B: I guess maybe ultimately we're in a unique position in history.
It's like an inflection point where we could go either way. One embrace viewer funded 100% say so. When a brand comes and says, I'd like to give you loads of money for access to your audience, the platform and the streamer can say, I'm fine, thanks, because I'm already being paid by the same audience you want access to.
Don't worry about it. Maybe that could be it. That is the inflection point. We could go that way. There's. That is fine. It's fine for things to change. That could be way better. It could be different. It could be way worse. We haven't really tried it, but it seems like it works. So embracing it is.
[00:34:52] Speaker A: We're in the discovery phase right now. We are testing it a and b ing it. You know, people are. I've seen some people who are subtly showing off products in the background or using it or whatever, and I have some people who are just like, I've seen, they're just pushing it, like right down here, like in your face, like, hey, buy this. This is the greatest product ever.
[00:35:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the shop streams definitely like that. It's designed like shop stream is like QVC, QVC on television. Like, that is well understood. Shopping television, which is an entirely, and we're not even including that in this discussion, completely different.
[00:35:28] Speaker A: It is someone selling a product live right there, like, with the intent to sell it to someone watching with a viewer.
[00:35:36] Speaker B: Their intent is to buy something.
[00:35:39] Speaker A: It doesn't have to be someone who's been in the community forever and grown this, like, relationship with the host.
[00:35:45] Speaker B: Right?
[00:35:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:46] Speaker B: It's not entertainment. It is entertaining. It is not entertainment. And the maybe that's not true, but the way that you're funding the person who's entertaining is through immediate transaction of product, which. Totally cool. It's awesome that that exists.
[00:36:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:02] Speaker B: Here, this is separate, so.
[00:36:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's more of the affiliate model, that one. But that's another way of your kindness, monetizing.
[00:36:12] Speaker B: You're kind of saying, like, you could see a way that because live streamers are so influential, they might not have a massive audience, but they are professional at what they do because they have their thousand true fans. Right.
[00:36:27] Speaker A: Yeah. And those audience members are very, they feel very close to the host.
[00:36:31] Speaker B: So having a, it's like having a product in the background suddenly becomes as influential to those people, if not more than like the biggest Hollywood star back in the nineties, drinking the drink on live, on television, that would have been the same level of endorsement.
[00:36:50] Speaker A: It's like the equivalent. It could be the same equivalent.
[00:36:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:36:53] Speaker A: Yeah. That's what I was saying earlier. Yeah.
[00:36:56] Speaker B: That's what I want. The study on that, the power of somebody drinking a Coca Cola on stream. Now to their thousand true fans who buy everything.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: I would like to use Marky Mark's Calvin Klein ad in the nineties. Can we do that?
[00:37:10] Speaker B: That's burned into your retinas. Oh, Marky Mark.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: How many, how many did he wear? Tight pants. Yeah. Tighty whities. No, they weren't tighty whities. They were the boxer briefs. The tight ones. How many people? Because I know. Males, females, everyone. All of them. Everybody.
[00:37:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:29] Speaker A: Bought those afterwards. They were like, I want to, I want to wear those, too.
[00:37:33] Speaker B: Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know that.
[00:37:36] Speaker A: The Calvin Klein's.
Yeah. Do you remember when Seinfeld, when it was kind of like, that was when Kramer got picked up.
[00:37:45] Speaker B: That was, that was that era.
[00:37:47] Speaker A: Yeah. And that was kind of like what happened, Marky Mark? Kind of like, it was like a thing about Mark. It was the Easter egg to Mark. I think, I think, I think. Let me know if you all agree with me on that. What do you think? What's your opinion?
[00:37:59] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:59] Speaker A: Do you think my, my hypothesis is accurate there?
[00:38:04] Speaker B: And Jerry Seinfeld, if you are a listener, because he might just be getting super into live streaming because he's advanced.
[00:38:10] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: Could you just let us know if that was a.
[00:38:13] Speaker A: Or Larry David?
[00:38:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:15] Speaker A: One of you two. Yeah.
[00:38:17] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:38:18] Speaker B: That's an interesting thought. Someone like Jerry Seinfeld getting into live streaming. You know, we've, there is definitely something that we've experienced that people who are exceptionally good in other markets or other formats struggle to switch over to live streaming just because there's so many different. It's a different framework.
[00:38:36] Speaker A: It is. You have to completely change the way you've done it before. You have to unlearn what you know and relearn something new.
[00:38:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:38:43] Speaker B: And it seems the same, but it's not the same.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: It isn't.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: I wonder if someone like that, like a Jerry Seinfeld who is like, clearly understands the craft that they're in really well would migrate into this new system or whether they would be so embedded.
[00:38:59] Speaker A: Are you, are you, are you challenging Jerry Seinfeld now?
[00:39:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:02] Speaker B: Okay. Now it's official.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: Jerry, my first row down there, we would like to challenge you to be a live streamer.
[00:39:10] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: Like not on twitch unless you're talking entertainment.
[00:39:14] Speaker B: Live streaming is gonna obviously.
[00:39:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:17] Speaker B: Comedy, but it can't be stand up. It's gotta.
[00:39:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:22] Speaker A: Have all the engagements to be interactive.
[00:39:24] Speaker B: Safety. See, it's like, here's the thing, though. How do you measure it? Because they would naturally get four, 5000 people in a room simply by their star quality.
[00:39:35] Speaker A: Mm hmm.
[00:39:35] Speaker B: So it would be like you'd have to test it out over time. It's like, can you maintain that? Is it genuinely interesting once you get.
[00:39:42] Speaker A: Over, people are just gonna stay there and watch for a long time because they're like, I cannot believe that this person is right here right now. Right.
[00:39:50] Speaker B: But that's what I mean. They, they would, maybe he would get 5000 or like, it would peak up to 10,000 and then drop down a little after a while, but eventually went on and did it. Well, yeah, he could have a hundred thousand people watching. That's the difference.
[00:40:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Or it'll just trickle down to like maybe a 1000, 1500 if the content doesn't start catering towards the platform, which is like engaging with the audience, which comedians do engage.
[00:40:19] Speaker B: I know it's the same. It's like heckling, but different.
[00:40:21] Speaker A: Well, we worked with the laugh house with those comedians and, you know, taught them about live streaming and how you translate the interaction you get from a live stand up show to like, what you're doing in front of your camera, in front of your phone.
[00:40:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:35] Speaker A: To like the TikTok live audience.
And it's like, you know, it is different. There are, it's different techniques you have to use and you have to, like, train your brain to think, okay, when I see those little hearts floating up, those are claps.
[00:40:47] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:48] Speaker A: You know, those are someone clapping or I get a troll. Oh, there's a heckler. Yeah, there's a heckler there. Can I, can I feed off this heckler? But should I ignore him?
[00:40:57] Speaker B: It seems also like the best live performers are emotionally impacted or feel that get the same endorphin or the chemical hit from the hearts coming up, or the comments that a live performer would get from the claps and the whoops and the laughs in the room. And that in itself is driving the energy of the show. So I think being able to actually have that physical, human chemical response to the. The applause or the communication you're getting is actually part of being good at it. It's like a trained thing.
[00:41:34] Speaker A: That's why it's important to understand what all of those metrics are and how they translate to real world metrics of, like, what gives you those dopamine hits.
[00:41:44] Speaker B: Well, that sounds like, this sounds like a whole other topic. So why don't we, why don't we wrap up for today?
[00:41:51] Speaker A: It's been a great time today.
[00:41:53] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: Industry. We've got lots of questions to answer here. How the way forward, and if you're.
[00:42:00] Speaker A: If you have those questions, too and you're interested, join us. Come along with us on our journey to find these out. Yeah, we're discovering things new all the time, and that's what we do. We bring it here to this podcast and we discuss it. And, you know, it's a growing organism here, this industry.
[00:42:20] Speaker B: See you next time, Tara.
