BlogTV was a live-streaming video blog service reintroduced by MadCow Disease Media LLC, in January 2016. BlogTV was first established in
Ramat Gan
Ramat Gan ( he, רָמַת גַּן or , ) is a city in the Tel Aviv District of Israel, located east of the municipality of Tel Aviv and part of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. It is home to one of the world's major diamond exchanges, and man ...
,
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
in January 2004 by founders
Ilan Ben-Dov, Dan Chen, Guy Eliav, Nir Ofir, and Oren Levy as a webcasting company. The service operated under the
Tapuz brand. BlogTV's goals were to provide a means for anyone with Internet access to express their talents and ideas to the world. In 2006 BlogTV launched its Canadian activity under the name BlogTV.ca. BlogTV.com was officially launched in June 2007 in the US and the rest of the world. Users could create live video shows, interact with their audiences or invite co-hosts (adults only) to join their show over the internet or by using
WAP. The broadcasters were able to broadcast to their audience with a
webcam
A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in videotelephony, livestreaming and social media, and security. Webcams can be built-in computer hardware or periphera ...
. The platform also included a chat system. The site had a promotional partnership with
ICQ, an IM platform.
YouNow
YouNow is a American broadcasting service where users stream their own live video content or interact with the video streams of other users in real time. The service is available on its website, on Android and iOS apps.
As of August 2015, the s ...
acquired BlogTV.com on March 13, 2013.
History
BlogTV.com and Merger with YouNow (2004–2013)
In February 2008, BlogTV.com launched the first live
user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is any form of content, such as images, videos, text, testimonials, and audio, that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media, discussion ...
for
mobile phone
A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive telephone call, calls over a radio freq ...
s. Handset owners could watch live content that was being produced and broadcast on BlogTV.com.
In July 2008, blogTV launched its Russian site. Worldwide BlogTV has a partnership with
ICQ, which established a promotional partnership with the BlogTV Russian site. ICQ was one of the first IM platforms and was widely used in Europe, Israel and in Russia. The Russian site had its own personal community manager, similar to worldwide BlogTV.
In December 2008, BlogTV began its Video Ad Revenue Share Program. With a set of criteria to apply, only certain people were able to participate in this program. However, despite the limitation it still generated 50% of the ad revenue from live shows, videos and embedded shows.
In February 2009, BlogTV introduced a new type of account, Pro. This allowed users to host private shows, generate new emoticons, and expanded recording space to 30 minutes per recording (500 minutes total).
On March 4, 2009, BlogTV released its junior channel. This was for users between the age of 13 and 15. The junior members could only broadcast to other junior users (age 13-15), and junior members could only view junior members' profiles. Guests were not allowed to enter the chat room, and no co-hosting or inviting a co-host were allowed. Other features for the junior members included no private message options, no ability to change the age of a junior member to move to into a regular member account type. For the regular members they are also not given the right to change their age to a junior member profile (to watch other junior members).
On September 16, 2009, BlogTV launched their 1.0 version of their toolbar. On June 29, 2010, the site released its 2.0 version of the toolbar, with many more features. Initially, the toolbar was only available for
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical user interface, graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Microsoft Wind ...
,
Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and ...
and the Firefox related browsers with the ability to use Firefox Add-ons
Epic Browser and
Wyzo.
In 2010, a then-moderator of ''Battlecam.com'' and now
YouTube personality known as
DJ Keemstar attacked a fellow moderator named Alex, calling him a "fucking nigger" while streaming with his hands up on BlogTV. He later told users in chat to type "Alex is a stupid nigger".
On March 13, 2013, it was announced that BlogTV would merge with the live streaming company
YouNow
YouNow is a American broadcasting service where users stream their own live video content or interact with the video streams of other users in real time. The service is available on its website, on Android and iOS apps.
As of August 2015, the s ...
. Those with BlogTV accounts were able to merge with YouNow and keep their username, recordings, social connections, and registration date. Those with Pro BlogTV accounts could claim more YouNow benefits, such as a higher level or extra coins, or could claim a refund on the remaining months of the Pro account. In addition, all BlogTV staff continue to work with
YouNow
YouNow is a American broadcasting service where users stream their own live video content or interact with the video streams of other users in real time. The service is available on its website, on Android and iOS apps.
As of August 2015, the s ...
. As of March 2013, BlogTV.com ceased to exist and redirected to
YouNow
YouNow is a American broadcasting service where users stream their own live video content or interact with the video streams of other users in real time. The service is available on its website, on Android and iOS apps.
As of August 2015, the s ...
.
BlogTV.ca (2016–2017)
On January 26, 2016, it was announced that BlogTV would become active again under the domain BlogTV.ca by new owners Madcow Disease Media, LLC.
On September 26, 2016, BlogTV.ca ran an “Open House”
alpha test where the community could sign up to an early build of the BlogTV site and chat in a developer livestream. The open house alpha test ran for two days and its main purpose was to stress test servers before the website went into closed beta testing for further development.
In April 2017, the BlogTV project was cancelled due to funding.
See also
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Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content i ...
*
Ustream
IBM Watson Media (formerly Ustream and IBM Cloud Video) is an American virtual events platform company which is a division of IBM. Prior to IBM acquisition, it had more than 180 employees across San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Budapest offices. ...
*
YouTube Live
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Lifecasting
Lifecasting is the process of creating a three-dimensional copy of a living human body, through the use of molding and casting techniques.Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for ...
*
Virtual community
A virtual community is a social network of individuals who connect through specific social media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. Some of the most pervasive virtual commun ...
*
Internet television
Streaming television is the digital distribution of television content, such as TV shows, as streaming media delivered over the Internet. Streaming television stands in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by over-the-ai ...
*
Broadcasting
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began ...
References
External links
BlogTV homepage
{{Internet streaming services
2013 mergers and acquisitions
Beta software
Blog hosting services
Citizen media
Community websites
Internet properties established in 2006
Internet properties disestablished in 2013
Live streaming services
Video hosting