On March 4, I was glued to my computer screen watching YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki wax poetic about the future of online video and the effort to combat misinformation. I geek out about stuff like this — I’m the founder of a video streaming company — but pre-pandemic, I may not have gotten the opportunity to hear Wojcicki speak at all.
That’s because her talk was virtual, offering people around the world the chance to listen in. Before COVID-19, the event would have been held in person — leaving fans like me out of luck.
Wojcicki was interviewed by Frederick Kempe, President & CEO of the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank; watch the replay below:
I’m fortunate enough to call the Atlantic Council a client. My company powers its multistreaming — allowing the Atlantic Council to live stream to Twitter, Facebook, and its website via YouTube with their remote production team and Zoom. (It sure beats setting up one iPhone for each particular streaming channel.) The Atlantic Council hosts heads of state, chief executives, and Nobel Prize winners regularly, and I can only smile when I think about bringing those important perspectives to the masses.
As I watched the Wojcicki/Atlantic Council event, I had a realization. Every event will have a virtual component from now on. The pandemic showed us that people are not only willing to watch from home; they’re excited by it. Hybrid events won’t simply be a nice-to-have — they will be expected.
Then I realized something that struck me to my core. We have been hindering the revolution to virtual and hybrid events. Despite providing critical technology to power these events, we’d been making one grave mistake: restrictions.
Switchboard had been selling subscriptions at different tiers. The more you paid, the more hours you could stream, the more destinations you got, and the higher the video and sound quality. It seemed like a good strategy for a while. But as the world turned virtual due to COVID-19, we kept asking ourselves: Why are we putting restrictions on the amount of time a content creator can stream? Why not let them scale up and down as they see fit?
My mindset change became a rallying cry. Removing restrictions helps streamers meet their audiences where they are. If your CEO has a LinkedIn page with a lot of engagement, stream there. If your head of marketing has a solid following on Twitter, stream to that page too. Stream to your company Facebook group and pages as well. Let people interact with you the way they are used to interacting with you. It just makes sense.
Unleash the Packages
So we made a decision to go all in on this line of thinking and introduce a few new concepts over the coming weeks. Yes we all can agree that change is good, but it also has to be mapped and planned out. So as you begin to plan your upcoming hybrid events for the fall we want to make sure Switchboard is providing you the best service offering to support these events.
Starting today we are unleashing BETA pricing that removes a bunch of previous restrictions so that we can move the needle for you by empowering you to get more viewers on your live streams!
- Unlimited Team Members
- Unlimited Workflows (inputs)
- Unlimited Destinations
Lasty, if you don’t know what StreamShareTM is, you are missing out on using a unique feature that simplifies the way to stream to multiple third party destinations simultaneously. We’ve made it super easy for you to send an invitation to an event/stream participant, sponsor, or brand, to opt-in and carry your live stream on their social channels, for more viewers to see. When YOU go live THEY go live.
Click here to learn more about StreamShareTM.
Rudy / CEO
Switchboard Live
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