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Cloudflare TV

blog.cloudflare.com

61–70 of 270 posts

Re: Cloudflare TV

#62
I'm wrong about all sorts of things, but I have a funny feeling that we're going to look back someday and see this as the first of many companies of a significant size launching something that looks just like a TV station. I can't emphasize how incredibly brilliant this is: it appears to be a perfectly curated combination of pure marketing webinar, tutorials, educational lectures and who knows what else. This is an example of a new micro-format, in the same way that the NYT won a Pulitzer for their oft-copied Snowfall. http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/index.html

In an era where SEO has ruined the cozy internet, content marketing is transparent and many people just don't trust the media not to lie to them, the idea that a company like CloudFlare could task a team with essentially launching the nerd equivalent of CSPAN (if not CNN) seems to me like something a genius would come up with.

Re: Cloudflare TV

#64
post #56

I'm a generally technical person and I'm simply flat out uninterested in video content - the stuff that will be on this sounds broadly interesting to me but I'd rather read it in article format. I understand video "performs" well in a lot of contexts (and thus is of particular interest to marketing people) but I am always surprised when content targeted broadly towards the technical community is done in a video-first…

I'm one of those people who feel the same. I'd rather read than watch.

Re: Cloudflare TV

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were you expecting?

I was expecting a video streaming CDN so anyone could build a Youtube/Twitch competitor without having to deal with storing, transcoding and (live)streaming video. I vaguely remember AWS offering something like this. Not sure how much money there is in this market but definitely sounds like a great product fit for someone like Cloudflare.

Vimeo, through its acquisition of vhx has this OTA solution you have just described.

Re: Cloudflare TV

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was kind of hoping for a place where people could broadcast live music concerts. (An alternative to YouTube and Twitch.)

Are music concerts materially different from other activities one would stream live? I guess traditional audience participation via call and response would at least put a fairly strict upper-bound on latency...

No, they aren't that diffferent. It's just an example of something one might want to do with live video.

Re: Cloudflare TV

#67
post #4

This is really interesting and I hope it's a success. It seems like it's intended to be 80% useful and 20% tongue-in-cheek joke. I'm skeptical that viewers will prefer this live scheduled format rather than simply posting all the videos to be viewed on-demand. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of this anachronism (and especially their 80s-era channel ID logo to go along with it) but personally I prefer to consume v…

I listen to a lot of talk radio (or otherwise out of leftfield radio) and a big part of the appeal is I never know exactly what I'm going to experience. I watch a lot of YouTube, etc, as well but it's a different self-curated experience where I'm choosing in advance, whereas tuning into a live radio station means I'm going to hear something I'm not expecting even if I don't like it.

Can Cloudflare put enough varied programming to make their "TV" channel similarly surprising if you tune in at random? Hard to say, but it would be neat if they managed to pull it off.

Re: Cloudflare TV

#68
post #56

I'm a generally technical person and I'm simply flat out uninterested in video content - the stuff that will be on this sounds broadly interesting to me but I'd rather read it in article format. I understand video "performs" well in a lot of contexts (and thus is of particular interest to marketing people) but I am always surprised when content targeted broadly towards the technical community is done in a video-first…

That’s an “it depends” for me. I do always want the transcript, but let’s appreciate that a competent lecturer brings a topic to life. You don’t have to be Richard Feynman, but you do have to reveal and conceptualise at a pace an informed and inquisitive brain latches onto.

Most video content is not at this level; it’s often either glibly oversimplified (content marketing), bogged down in minutiae (how-to guides), or buried under irrelevancies (what’s up guys).

There is something I’d often prefer to consume as a AV recording, and that is interviews/panel discussion. The nuances of articulation, even body language may be informative. Compare and contrast the transcript with the video at https://www.erlang-solutions.com/blog/let-s-talkconcurrency-... for example.

Re: Cloudflare TV

#69
post #56

I'm a generally technical person and I'm simply flat out uninterested in video content - the stuff that will be on this sounds broadly interesting to me but I'd rather read it in article format. I understand video "performs" well in a lot of contexts (and thus is of particular interest to marketing people) but I am always surprised when content targeted broadly towards the technical community is done in a video-first…

I'm a dev and enjoy my articles too, but I'd say I perform better with videos in some domains. The first one to come to mind if mechanic work. If I want to learn how to change a mass inflow sensor, it's way easier to watch the job be performed than to read a description, even with pictures.

Re: Cloudflare TV

#70
post #63

I like the concept of live tv playing around the clock. Does it end Sunday 2am or is this ongoing?

Plan is to keep it going as long as there’s interest. We’ll keep filling in slots 7 days out with new live content as well as best-of content that’s already aired.
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