Justgood.tv: Covering social good events

Justgood.tv: Covering social good events from JD Lasica on Vimeo.

Nonprofits can take advantage of live-streaming events — on the cheap

At Net Tuesday, I sat down with Arabella Santiago, founder and CEO of JustgoodTV, a network of curated stories about mission-driven organizations, social entrepreneurs and responsible businesses that have impact. The service provides nonprofits, NGOs, businesses and organizations with web production services, capturing and producing programming that is then distributed to a network of audiences from communities of purpose.

As the Web becomes more video-centric, nonprofits need to jump on board. Nonprofits of all sizes should be thinking about how to bring the events they put on to a wider community of supporters.

Live streaming is just not as daunting as it was back in its early days. Nearly half of the events and conferences I attend these days have live-streaming video coverage, and when I head out on the road with the Traveling Geeks, several participants, like Robert Scoble and Howard Rheingold, live-stream our interviews to their followers through their video-enabled cell phones.

As Arabella points out, the entire set-up can be had for as little as $300. You may want to start with something as simple as a Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 Web camera, available online starting at $70.

Your mileage may vary, depending on the skills of your team, the kind of video and audio equipment you use and the kind of event you’re producing. If you’d like to hire an independent production team, JustgoodTV can provide a three-person crew for more than that — the rate varies depending on a number of factors, so contact Arabella on her site.

Though I expect we’ll see some consolidation in the marketplace in the next 18 months, all of the live-streaming services — Livestream, Ustream, Justin.tv, Kyte and Qik — provide free streaming and video archiving as well as higher-quality ad-free premium services. That means it’s likely that many more people who did not attend your event will be able to see it in the days and weeks afterward.

Watch, download or embed the video on Vimeo
(It’s a touch over 10 minutes long, so not eligible under YouTube’s somewhat insulting 10-minute-limit policy.)

Socialbrite hopes to provide ongoing coverage of how to turn nonprofits into media organizations in the months ahead — and video is a big part of that transformation.

Does your organization use live streaming to cover events? What services or tools do you use?

Ustream: It’s YouTube for live video