Live Streaming - Thing 10

Live streaming is really the pinnacle of 'putting yourself out there'. Not only can people hear you but they can see you as well. Eeek!

I have never thought about streaming live so I have never investigated the technology. I've heard of Ted Talks and even watched a few, but didn't ever think of them as streaming live. Sometimes Rudai 23 just gives you the umbrella name for what you've been doing all along. This tool is very useful when thinking of conferences. As funds are squeezed, it is unlikely that we will get to take part in as many conferences so live streaming is a useful way to dip in and out of the conference programme, and participate from the comfort of your own office.

I wasn't able to take part in the Rudai 23 Hangouts on Air but I did watch the video playback on Youtube. Having never seen a HOA, it was great to watch one in action. It works on the same premise as FaceTime or Skype I suppose and from watching the video, I gleamed the following points:

• The main facilitator has a very difficult job; guiding the conversation, posing questions, checking the technology, facilitating the debate, checking twitter. I think the Rudai 23 team (Stephanie and Martin in this case) did a terrific job.
• The time goes very quickly. I couldn't believe it when Stephanie said that their time was nearly up. For this reason, it is probably better to have a set of questions that you want to go through - useful if the chat dries up, but not so crucial if conversation goes off in a different tangent.
• Sometimes it appears to be difficult to get the flow of the conversation right. People answering over one another, faces freezing etc. I think this is just part and parcel of this type of technology. Alot depends on the connection you have to ensure that freezing is kept to a minimum, that video and voices are in sync. It happens with FaceTime so I don't think that this is an issue exclusive to Google HOA.
• The conversation was really interesting jumping from how people are applying Rudai 23 in their daily work, to Things that they are looking forward to (Augmented Reality seemed to be an attraction) and the debate between personal vs professional social media accounts. 

I also signed up for Periscope. Unfortunately the app wasn't compatible with my tablet so I had to download it to my phone. The problems of android. It was extremely easy to sign in with my twitter details and from this, automatically follow people as the information was pulled through from my twitter account. However, no-one I follow has made a periscope video recently.  I'll wait in hope and be prepared when I see one popping up on twitter.  I have seen people I follow tweeting about their periscope video but when I went to view it, I was too late. I wasn't aware that it only lasts for 24 hours so this explains it. I need to be quicker off the mark.