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What is Live Streaming Software?
Live Streaming Software enables users and organizations to broadcast live event feeds over the internet and engage with their audience in real-time.
Organizations commonly use live streaming software to market company events, promote their products and service, and connect with a target audience.
Live streaming tools help companies in a variety of ways:
Creates a sense of urgency
Live streaming’s “in the now” essence helps improve engagement. It can hold attention in the way recordings and archived video, text, and audio mediums don’t. Live streaming features help encourage interactions through Q&A, audience response activities, and more.
Improved reach
Videos can be streamed through one’s website, social media platforms, and other video sites at the same time. After completion, recordings are made available and can be shared through different mediums, or to have the content repurposed into other forms (e.g., blog posts).
Audience insights
Live streaming software helps provide analytics and other ways to understand your audience, such as traffic statistics, average watch time, geography, age, participation levels, sources (i.e., where they came in from), and more.
Features of Live Streaming Tools
For inclusion in the live streaming software category, the product should provide:
- Broadcasting in real-time and anywhere an internet connection is available
- Audience insights and analytics to track viewership and engagement metrics
- System regulations (i.e., who can view, public/private)
- Audience engagement via chat, surveys, etc.
- Ability to stream to various social media channels
- Recording capabilities to tape for future use or to repurpose the content
Top Live Streaming Software
#1 Instreamly
Instreamly is a platform that automates the process of negotiating micro-sponsorships between brands and streamers.
Over 100,000 micro-sponsorship deals have been signed through the platform so far.
Instreamly’s click-through rate for paid ads is around 4%, significantly larger than the industry average of 0.7%.
The startup has raised $1.6M in funding over 2 rounds. Their last funding round valued the company at around $9M.
#2 Restream
Restream is a live streaming platform that enables users to stream to over 30+ platforms simultaneously.
The service offers a variety of features including:
Live streaming to multiple platforms simultaneously
Custom RTMP ingest server
Analytics and chat moderation
White-labeling and branding options
#3 Castr
Castr is a live streaming platform that offers users the ability to live stream to multiple platforms simultaneously with just one click.
The service also provides:
End-to-end live streaming solution
Live stream recording and storage
Streaming protocols: RTMP, HLS, WebRTC
Multi-bitrate streaming
24/7 customer support
Pricing plans start at $29/month.
What’s next for the live streaming market
Instreamly, as an example, is part of the livestream sponsorship platforms trend.
The livestreaming market is forecasted to reach $300 billion by 2030 (CAGR of 28%).
And livestream sponsorships will play a significant role in this growth.
Trending services
Wehype is a marketplace designed to connect brands and gamers. It has raised a total of $1.82M in funding over 3 funding rounds.
Game Influencer helps game publishers and influencers connect. The startup is currently angel-backed.
Hypetrain is a marketing platform that helps connect brands with live streamers. It has raised $2.1M in funding over 2 rounds.
What is the next big trend in live streaming?
The next big trend in live streaming is likely to be more interactive and engaging content.
This could include anything from adding Q&A sessions or polls to live streams, to providing more behind-the-scenes access to events or products.
Whatever the case may be, the goal will be to keep viewers engaged and coming back for more.
Live commerce platforms are gaining popularity
You’ve heard about livestream shopping, right?
Wheels are turning
buywith, a popular platform where brands can host live interactive shopping events, secured a seed round of $9.5 million.
And Firework earned $150 million in funding just days before.
… And it’s only getting started: Live commerce companies are emerging and growing quickly, with companies like Whatnot and Popshop raising more than hundreds of millions of capital in recent years.
Altogether, they’re expected to reach $200 billion in revenue by 2030. That’s still 10 times less than China, where live commerce has been popular since 2016 and was already hitting $423 billion in revenue in 2022.
Why we care about live commerce platforms
Many brands and marketers have yet to harness the potential of live shopping, and the opportunity is huge.
Meta has already launched Live Shopping on Facebook, TikTok is testing live commerce… It all points to a future where online shopping happens real-time.
So think about jumping on the trend while it’s still early.