This past Saturday night, YouTube held its YouTube Live event sponsored by Virgin, Flip, Lionsgate and Guitar Hero. The event, broadcast live from Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, included performances from Tay Zonday, will.i.am, Katy Perry, Joe Satriani, Bo Burnham, Michael, Buckley, Lisa Nova, Beardyman and many more. It was a geek fest to end all geek fests. But where was LonelyGirl16? Gary Brolsma? Syncsta (Barbie Girl, What is Love, Numa Numa, Ballroom Blitz Celebrate)? Tron? And all those other YouTube geeks?
No matter. The show was passable. Some complained of poor video quality and poor performances. This being YouTube’s first outing, we can’t complain. It kept us engaged for a while. So engaged, in fact we we paused viewing of the movie 21 so we could watch it until the end.
Some questioned YouTube’s apparent attempt to enter a world outside the internet, a place far removed from its core competency. But we’re of the mind it’s all melding. TV, internet, social media. No one really knows where it’s going and that’s what’s so intriguing about it. Everyday is a new day.
If you didn’t catch it live, you can watch the entire “broadcast” here.
Apparently, there was supposed to be a corresponding YouTube Live broadcast out of Tokyo following the San Francisco broadcast. Seemingly, it was an epic fail. After a delay of many hours, all that was offered was prerecorded videos. Nothing live.
Oh well. This is the internet after all. Not broadcast TV. In terms of quality and dependability, good old fashioned broadcast TV still trumps anything the internet can offer. But, that won’t last for long.
