I was doing some further investigation on justin.tv’s perceived traffic increase when I ran into this little ditty:

From Valley Wag

“Lifecasting site Justin.tv has come a long way since banning a broadcaster for one night of indecent exposure — that is, sexual acts. There may be less porn now, but other illegal content now graces Justin.tv’s servers. Right now I’m watching a stream of Fox Sports Net West’s broadcast of the San Diego Padres playing the Los Angeles Angels. Last night, more than 2,000 people watched the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers play. Given Major League Baseball’s draconian online reporting rules — no more than seven photos from any game; audio and video clips can be a maximum of two minutes and can’t be streamed live — we doubt the MLB is happy about this.”

It’s just a matter of time before the FCC come knocking at the door. To get a idea of what JTV is doing numbers-wise I heade over the compete.com and alexa.com. According to Alexa JTV’s numbers seemed to spike around February. This is about the time we started to see the illegal sports content being streamed from the site. If you scroll down alexa’s page You’ll notice that US traffic at 18%. This number represents the total traffic from US viewers and it’s pretty poor. So poor in fact that no US based advertisers would touch it with 82% of it’s traffic outside the target market. Ustream’s rating of 34.1% is not much better and while JTV enjoys a traffic rating of 4,497. Ustream’s rating of 8,078 give’s you more US viewers for it’s numbers.

Head over the Compete.com for a real world analysis of JTV & Ustream and it’s quite evident. Ustream’s growth is steady and sure. JTV’s is littered with traffic spikes that indicate growth from the rebroadcast of illegal content. My money is on Ustream.

Etard indicated that he had contacted various sports outlets in regards to JTV’s illegal streaming activities. Whether he’s been successful in getting their attention is uncertain. One thing we do know for sure. JTV will have to end the illegal broadcast by either stopping it or shutting down. It will be interesting to see which course of action is taken.

-tm,
Holla!

Here’s 5 reasons below:

1. While the site maintains a good number of viewers daily, the big draw is illegally streamed content. You cannot maintain a bussiness model based on pirated media. See: Does video have a Napster problem

2. Audience turnover, JTV had a flourishing community of lifecasters, showcasters & followers. The ultimate downfall of the site was the opening up of the beta program so soon. Being on JTV was no longer a special thing. People used to beg to be on now you can be on with a single click. There’s nothing special about it. Secondly, with no diplomacy in place negativity between casters flourished. These factors made it impossible for most people to remain on the site. What a shame, they had the foundation for a great user experience but couldn’t manage the community their beta casters worked hard to build.

3. Adding the social element to JTV seemed like a good idea, but with the mis-mash of ill conceived information architecture it seemed unfocused. Using those features proved to be a challenge to even the seasoned user.

4. JTV has fallen off the tech radar as tech bloggers and reporters have choosen to write about the next new and fabulous socialthing, twitter-clone or me too social application that pops up. JTV had no presence at SXSW or any other noteworthy place. Without a good publicist you FAIL miserably.

5. While JTV may have more users Ustream.TV has iJustine! HOLLA!!!!

-tm