Failing
Not Failing
BlogTV isn’t a site a legitimate business should use as a main source of completing a sale – so I kinda chuckled when I saw Box Breakers use it as the source to display live streams. The site has pop-up ads when I go to it … that’s turning away buyers.
And it’s part of the reason BlogTV was broke. You know they were broke for 2 reasons. One, they say it (in so many words) on their own website. Underline added for effect
“but we are excited to partner with YouNow who are able to provide the resources necessary to move forward.” – From Why Is BlogTV Merging With YouNow?
That, and the technology they were using sucked. YouNow is only buying the database of users! If they technology was any good they’d leave the site up! And guess what they are going to do with that DB of new e-mails & users?
Blast your (customers) inbox with ways to make YouNow money back on the amount they paid per user.
Watching the video to a box break I’m involved in is almost as important as getting the cards! Would you let your broke neighbor ship out the cards from your last break? Of course not … then why are you letting broke websites stream your content? (YouNow.com and any streaming site not named YouTube is up to it’s eye balls in debt too
So What Site Do I Use?
100% do not use YouNow. I saw a link that said “Girls” on the bottom of the homepage. I would not send a paying user to that type of experience. Not to mention the site sucks worse than BlogTV did.
You need to send users to your own website. Quit using 3rd party, login and set-it-up in 5 min type websites. You’re insulting the customer who is spending their hard earned money by sending them to BlogTV who sold just for the database of names for e-mail blasting purposes. Live streaming has come along way in just the last 2 – 3 years. You can now stream video (live) via HTTP … which basically wasn’t possible that long ago.
If I were to setup a box break website this would be my first choice:
Last I heard Apple was going to give shareholders 13 Billion Dollars each year. (That’s like the net worth of the Ralph Lauren clothing company). Probably means they’re running a good business and have good products. You should use them.
Adobe and other tech giants have live streaming solutions for this as well. Many have DVR like functions that allow people to pause, rewind, replay.
Call any decent hosting provider (cough … Amazon or Liquid Web) and they will probably help set this up for you if you have no idea how to implement. You could easily search the internet (or Apple’s help files) and figure out how to do it yourself.
What about my chat box?
There are tons of open source chat boxes you can embed right next to your live streams. You could code one in like 20 mins even if you barely know what you’re doing. Embed it next to your hosted videos.
Done.
Conclusion:
You are loosing customers and money by hosting your box breaks on fail websites like BlogTV (and the like). The video is what makes box breaking unique! Spend a little time, resources and money in improving that experience … and you’ll be amazed how that small amount of effort will pay off in the long run.
