The main business issues analyzed in the literature relate to recommender systems for various live streaming platforms. The key feature of this paper is a comprehensive examination of live streaming from both technological and business perspectives. We offer several directions for future research and areas where the analytical approach could be improved. Furthermore, the insights provided by our classification of academic studies should be useful for the related industries and other stakeholders in live streaming development. This paper contributes to the understanding of live streaming service provider and highlights the increased engagement of social media in lives and business activities.
In this paper, we aim to illustrate the evolution of live streaming service from both a technological and a business perspective. We provide a comprehensive analysis of live streaming development and classify related academic studies into a coherent framework. These academic studies are derived from a literature search of relevant databases and reflect the increasing importance of live streaming in social practice. Hidden Markov models (HMMs) are found to be the most frequently adopted technique to model the features of live streaming services, and predictions of live streaming activity are addressed.
Technological advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) have supported the proliferation and development of live streaming activity, which provides real-time video and audio communication among two or more users. Live streaming Singapore are now widely used in various social activities such as gaming, shopping, news reporting, and social networking.
Definition and Scope of Live Streaming Services
OTT become increasingly involved in the stage of live TV and live events. In China, leading platforms include Tencent’s live broadcast platform, iQiyi, and iQiyi. As the top internet companies continue to deepen their layouts, the entire live industry is almost monopolized, with a total revenue of more than 100 billion RMB in 2017-2019. Since 2015, the live streaming business has been a hot focus of speculation on the Internet Plus concept. Live streaming trends from apps to smart TVs, VR, and other platforms are opening up endless possibilities for live content. With the continuous rise of video on the internet and the advancement of audiovisual technology, user video viewing is also moving in a more diverse direction. Along with subscription models and ad-based models, the integration of e-commerce and live streaming models has also led to major changes in how users use and pay for watching videos. Emerging live streaming services have increased the stickiness and monetization capabilities of video platforms compared to traditional users who have become accustomed to on-demand and pre-show video operations.
As a variety of new media, live streaming services are a product that has emerged with the development of mobile internet technology and the integration of internet and traditional industry. Broadly defined, live streaming service refers to the various live broadcasts of video, audio, or video and audio (i.e., live or repeat broadcasts) and interactive participation that are carried out within the scope of a certain IP address. Users can interact with the anchor through written, spoken, pictorial, and other question-and-answer forms to create interactive and collaborative traditional and digital contents. This includes platforms for hosting live services, apps, websites, and embedded players that access the service. Many devices can be capable of serving user viewing, including websites, apps, smart TV terminal solutions, Mi Box, Xiaomi TV, etc. Live streaming services are part of the broader OTT business.
Key Features of Live Streaming Services
Privacy: The granularity of control that users (both broadcasting and viewing) can exert over who is allowed to do particular things at a particular time. This could range from the sender’s side (who can disclose or hide channels to the public, who can watch live, and who will be allowed to interact when watching), or from the receiver’s side (who can block the sender permanently or for a limited time, who can receive and read chat or messages) and go all the way to specific access blocks (IP addresses, network masks) at particular points in time (for instance, by giving privileged access to paying subscribers).
User accounts: Live streaming services almost invariably require that their users create an account before they can start to use interactive features, follow particular producers or streams, create and maintain their own channels, so that their different interactions over time can become persistent, or also create recordings, playlists, or curated collections. User accounts also enable the service to control whether certain types of verified content get a different kind of visibility, and also to customize what kind of advertised content will be presented to each user.
Interactivity: Some means of interaction over the live streams, outside simply viewing them. This could include following channels, actively participating in broadcasting content, live public chat or messaging with the broadcasting stream, private messaging with the broadcasting system or producer, reactions or comments, polls or direct participation in public discussion.
Video: Generation or retransmission of audiovisual content as it is being recorded in real time. This can be a large variety of formats, ranging from TV-like live programming to personal, direct communication, and ranging in duration from formats similar to traditional TV shows, episodes in ongoing series, to individual short clips.
In order to understand why live streaming usage has skyrocketed in recent years and what factors contribute to the success or failure of a live streaming service, we have examined a wide range of existing live streaming offerings to identify the key features that they provide. We have identified six overarching types of features of live streaming services, which can be summarized thus:
The Live Streaming Market Landscape
The majority of LSS do make use of social media to some extent, generally though preventing viewers from watching without first providing the live streamer with further revenue. Advertisements and event sponsorship are also popular ways to monetize events. Popular LSSs include Ustream, Vimeo, YouTube, Yahoo!, Justin.tv, LiveStream, NowLive, Bitgravity, Origin Digital, Streamguys. Ustream is particularly popular and is used to broadcast a wide range of events including bodybuilding competitions, opera recitals, television commercials, fashion shows, and rallies, among others. These events are enriched with some social media-like experience by chat features. As live streaming is characterized by an anytime, anywhere, and with any improvised content nature, some LSS target specific types of content. For example, Frontrowmag mainly targets fashion week events and helps users to keep up to date with the latest trends. Concert Window makes it possible to attend concerts anywhere. Furthermore, more specific live streaming events seem to be more suitable to organize through their website. Therefore, LSSs usually target different domain types. Few of the LSSs we analyzed were truly domain-independent. Such an example is Ustream, a video hosting service that offers both free and paid possibilities for live streaming. The above are tools to analyze the landscape of live streaming.
The landscape of live streaming changes rapidly. In order to provide a deeper understanding of live streaming in the early stages of its journey, we turn to the service landscape. In this section, we provide a comprehensive analysis of the 102 live streaming services selected. We begin by highlighting differences between the analyzed LSS and then describe their characteristics and popularity.
Global Trends and Statistics
The denomination live streaming refers to media servers being dragged in real-time to large audiences of users. The live video streaming workflow has been broken chronologically into three functional stages: capturing, processing/distribution, and displaying to users. The most common broadcasting solution historically was hardware-based. Nowadays, options involve replacing the traditional broadcasting station with a personal computer, a software solution, and an input and an autonomous device that encodes the inputs through an internet connection. Such a device can be based on dedicated hardware or some software running on a powerful computer; increasingly, smartphones are powerful enough to perfectly handle the task of capturing and connectivity. Modern and high-quality equipment allows taking several inputs simultaneously, independent of the use of multiple display cards to appear on the screen. Enjoying increased internet speed and capacities, the transformation has begun to decentralize internet video traffic and reduce the exceptional video quality requirements supported by real-time viewing scenarios.
Live video streaming has been revolutionizing the world of multimedia, offering real-time online interaction and currently being one of the most popular types of media content, with several different services being offered to the users at many different levels and with very different characteristics. Keeping track of the dynamics and offer of this kind of services is a continuous task. In the last decade, some research has included studies focusing on analysis of the usage of live streaming services, trying to model or predict the evolution of the traffic consumed by these through specific models or general ones that include these services. The aim of the present work is to review all the figures and statistics about live streaming services and the evolution of the internet traffic generated by live video streaming for the past few years, including market trends and the usual sources of content.
Key Players in the Industry
Then, the live streaming industry has or is expected to include many of the same or similar end user companies such as Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, and Snapchat. In addition, some of the most popular live streaming social media companies include Periscope, Meerkat, and Blab. Some of these companies are very recent, and many have not been featured for more than two or three years.
As in the industry of over-the-top, have been widely recognized those companies who are involved or have developed strategies to be involved in the online video service business. However, because the phenomenon of live streaming is a current emerges, industry analysis does not categorize it as a specific topic. Texts or stakeholders discourse that characteristics the terminology used in documents are identified, for example, as over-the-top, digital video, online television or video on demand, etc. The present research identifies companies that are key players in the live streaming service through the use of trend analysis and the use of so-called domain names of the online video business. By checking the names of those who appear more frequently in the business lexicon, the documentary analysis and the in-depth interview have narrowed the list of the key makers involved in online live streaming services.
Live Streaming Services in Singapore
As consumers become increasingly reliant on portable smart devices, streaming services have become an essential mode of enjoying entertainment and video content. Motivated by the popularity of live streaming services (LSS) and the emergence of dedicated live streaming platforms such as Bigo, Openrec, Twitch, Periscope, Facebook Live, Lavlive, and Huya, in this study, we examine the viewership patterns of some dominant LSS, specifically in Singapore. As an international financial and economic hub, Singapore is considered a technology-literate, mobile-first, and mobile-savvy society. Nonetheless, with the increase in the number of platforms, significant platform-specific viewership patterns emerge. In particular, when are the best times to broadcast in order to attract the largest audience? When do audiences reach their peak? To the best of our knowledge, this paper covers such comparisons of different LSS at two different levels of classification: hourly and daily. The empirical findings will allow potential live streamers to plan the timely scheduling and posting of their content on the various LSS.
In the previous section, we examined the burgeoning popularity of LSS around the world. However, there is a dearth of academic literature that examines LSS in the context of LSS usage and adoption in Singapore. For this target study, the hourly and daily viewing data of live videos posted by four of the largest LSS in Singapore – Bigo, Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook Live – are collected directly from a reputable third-party source. This allows a direct comparison of these major LSS for both the hourly and daily studies. The results provide LSS users with some insight into the best timings to post live videos they want to be viewed by the widest audience.
Overview of the Market in Singapore
As live streaming on YouTube started becoming popular in Singapore, people have become increasingly accustomed to a piece of news going viral, with everybody talking about it. With respect to legalizing it, it was announced in 2013 that a review may lead to penalties for hosts of live streams featuring questionable content. In 2014, realizing the growing appeal of live streaming, Media Corp was given the go-ahead to officially offer live webcast of 1 channel only, having trialed it on the channel’s special events earlier. In 2015, Singapore’s Media Development Authority launched a public consultation until 27 November 2015, with a view of shaping the regulatory framework to facilitate beneficial uses of live streaming, while deterring negative social impacts such as unauthorized online transmission of content as well as content that incite hate speech.
In Singapore, live streaming of TV programmes has been available since the mid-2000s. NGC Networks, owner of Singapore’s only pay-TV network, made its Cable TV packages available to end-consumer personal computer users, enabling them to view live TV shows and utilize the Video-on-Demand feature. The success of the packages was celebrated, as prices were lowered, set-top boxes were no longer necessary, and programming at full resolution, as well as 3-D graphic quality, were provided to viewers.
Popular Live Streaming Platforms in Singapore
Other than using other popular platforms to live stream with the viewers, Acorn is an app developed by Mixed Realms that has the capability of streaming the live game between the gamers and the viewers. It provides lots of interaction and makes communication more hassle-free. Due to the lack of popular platforms in Singapore, many users rely on overseas popular live streaming platforms for this function. Apps like Meerkat, Periscope, and Facebook Live were, therefore, hotly used due to the ease of accessibility. Where there is an absence of a popular live streaming platform in Singapore, it presents opportunities for content developers to create novelty content to gather the crowd. This is mainly because the content providers are unable to obtain the latest information in Singapore, and live streaming platforms can be an informal source of news.
On the flip side, despite Singapore opening up its technology and establishing itself as a global tech hub, it is still lagging behind countries such as the US and China in terms of offering a popular live streaming platform. Though there are certain reasons to justify its delay, we believe that the improved infrastructure and Hong Kong as the intermediary can be a turning point for a popular live streaming platform to enter Singapore. In the Singapore market, live streaming is predominantly used by lesser-known broadcasters and it is not the usual platform for internet personas.
Technological Innovations in Live Streaming
In the technological evolution of live streaming, the following stages can be identified: (1) Static display content—A webpage reconstruction technology with functions of information display, page appearance control, form data submission, etc., it is designed around users. (2) Dynamic interaction content—Combining JavaScript with webpage reconstruction technology, information on a web page can change in real time. (3) Hypermedia content—Basic technologies have been consolidated to develop HTML5 technology, which integrates video and audio, greatly improving the speed of playing Internet multimedia resources, and providing a more comfortable hypermedia information display for users. (4) Intelligent interactive content—Cloud technology, the Internet of Things, and big data technology are integrated with webpage reconstruction, mobile communication technology, browser technology, multimedia technology, HTML technology, and other technologies, to achieve the interaction of intelligent devices, services, and environmental conditions, and build an intelligent web platform, providing a more professional and intelligent service for the Internet user.
Live streaming is considered to have evolved over three generations. The first-generation platform was used for political communication, entertainment, and advertising through companies such as Youku and YouTube. The second-generation platform focused on amateur and professional content sharing and the integration of cloud technologies. The third generation of platforms sought to integrate Internet functionalities, expanding users’ experiences with new technologies. The development of live streaming technology has also directly affected the role of its users who became prosumers operating as content providers and consumers. In this process, prosumers have gradually achieved great success and become entrepreneurs. They have changed the mode of content appeal and commercial value. Moreover, they have created a life-changing industry within the industry, and the boundaries between industries have become blurred.
Advancements in Video Compression Technologies
The latest video compression technologies, such as the H.264/Advanced Video Coding (AVC) standard, the H.265/High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard, and the Scalable Video Coding (SVC) extension of the H.264/AVC standard, are capable of further reducing bit rate and improving video quality relative to conventional video compression techniques. Live streaming video is a type of real-time multimedia data that has two key challenges. Here, we provide a brief overview of and background information on key technologies involved in live streaming. High-quality video content has evolved dramatically during the last few years, mainly in response to two pertinent factors. First, emerging devices have supported high-resolution video displaying capabilities. Second, people increasingly rely on the Internet for obtaining valuable information, regardless of geographical and environmental limitations. Consequently, streaming video services, which provide encoding, encryption, and transmission techniques to deliver video content over a computer network in real time, are growing quickly, becoming more prevalent and even dominant relative to traditional video broadcasting services such as terrestrial, satellite, and cable television.
The demand for high-quality video content has evolved dramatically over the past few years. Services that provide streaming video are growing quickly and are becoming increasingly dominant relative to traditional video broadcasting services. In response to this trend, the latest video compression technologies, such as the H.264/Advanced Video Coding (AVC) standard, the H.265/High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard, and the Scalable Video Coding (SVC) extension of the H.264/AVC standard, have been installed in major streaming media platforms to maintain high-quality video delivery while saving bandwidth consumption. However, new technologies for live streaming have not attracted as much attention as on-demand streaming does. To cover this deficiency, the following sections comprehensively show key technologies contributing to live streaming and the latest technical issues.
Integration of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality
The technologies to improve the demand for the live streaming experience led to the curiosity and innovation of the broadcasting model, the interaction between the liner and the viewers, and the management of content distribution. The collective orientation, adding Swarmcast technology, and other engineers innovated the development of YouTube Live. By integrating partners’ API, they provide a complete service plan from the broadcasting system to the front-end application and perform a large number of experiments to adjust the quality of the real-time content on the platform. After the acquisition of Twitch, which was trending live streaming with their own tools, the Amazon management team re-planned their three custom business solutions—Twitch for content creators, ModClips for esports content—live streaming market, and Curse for social communities. The Twitch platform uses a dedicated network protocol, listens to user feedback during the continuous update. Most live match alerts are still automatically broadcast with the audience’s qualification, supported by a simplified journalism experience on various operating devices.
Users can follow public channels on Twitch just like they do on Twitter or Instagram, and they can also communicate with them, cheer them, subscribe to their channels if they pay for it, and then earn loyalty badges, etc. Users can view live streaming videos but not contents after viewing, which is the same with Instagram users. They can leave comments, press hearts, send direct messages with the broadcaster, and followers get one notification of their remarks; the content is shared with groups or, if it doesn’t need to share online, Instagram users can publish private “Story” images and videos. These private stories expire after their set limitations on time or view count. Therefore, contest semantics understanding on live streaming services can still be the key research direction for a long time.
Question and Challenge. Although great advances in the flexibility of communication methods are achieved, it is still an art form with many aspects to improve. Notify me.
Recent live streaming services further integrate augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) and achieve several milestones: (1) Piwars, developed by Paul and Klaczynska, is an action-packed, 90-minute show featuring 37 contestants and their robots, which is broadcasted live on RobotClub’s Twitch channel in the spring of 2015; (2) during the TwitchCon 2015, the next-generation distribution and community platform for gamers—Twitch—announces an integration with FaceRig, which is a “program enabling anyone with a webcam, to digitally embody an anthropomorphic character”; (3) many people saw Jesse Welle (aka PrankvsPrank) and Adam Sella (aka Dudesons) joined Robbert Dijkgraaf (director and Leon Levy Professor of the Institute for Advanced Study) broadcasted a weekly physics show on YouNow, and then YouNow subsequently announced an integration with Unity Technologies, AR such as Vuforia, and mixed reality on HoloLens to map live performer movement and actions into a smaller digital display that overlays and interacts with the performer’s real-world presence on the live streaming platform. In summary, the next-generation live streaming services will help hosts express their thought and make a difference in the world much easier.
Challenges and Future Directions
Non-Technical Challenges – Governments, regulators, and other stakeholders may need to take steps to address several non-technical challenges facing live streaming in delivering a glimpse of a desirable digital future. The recommendations are as follows: 1) Government-driven opportunities to increase multi-stakeholder collaboration in addressing broader live streaming service development, through e.g., regulatory reform, will be key enablers. 2) A potential global industry policy, which focuses on innovating from the ground up, to ensure that all stakeholders have the tools and skills necessary to understand the boundary debates to be able to effectively use live streaming services, as well as the music, audio, and video content on which live streaming services depend, for various purposes, including those of artists, creators, which, and users. 3) Strengthen multi-industry collaboration across the digital economy of tomorrow, in Corum’s opinion, with an increasing industry ad hoc for pathways to ensuring that all contributors to live streaming creative production, plus enabling every content provider to address the content industries, the telecommunications and the ICT industry players in general. 4) The importance of maintaining strong leadership and innovative circuitry during the re-written definition of live streaming UX technical and social interactional challenges as strategically re-written form follows.
Technical Challenges and Research Opportunities – 1) To deliver uninterrupted, high-quality video, live streaming services require a stable network with high bandwidth guarantees. However, it is difficult for service providers in practice to ensure the service quality over public networks, especially with stabilizing wireless networks where the signal quality will be variable and complex. As such, several key questions relative to achieving favorable live streaming quality remain unanswered. For example: 2) What is the impact of network support capacity and video bandwidth on live streaming’s popularity, both in terms of established services and service quality differentiation? 3) What is the future evolution of operator-OTT strategic collaboration in broadband network construction to meet demand growth in order to maintain the successful penetration of online video?
Despite the widespread popularity and proliferation of live streaming services, several technical and non-technical challenges still need to be addressed.
Regulatory Challenges and Compliance
The requirements to ensure network functionality include IP addresses, line encryption, efficient patches for signaling grayscale conversion, numerical recording, monitoring, and interception of digital intelligence services. The obligation to notify security incidents, as well as a series of provisions that illustrate the principle of proportionality for the suitable, specific, and one-off obligations for providers of electronic communication services to guarantee interoperability and interconnectedness.
The principles relating to horizontal and end-to-end internet access contained in articles 2(b) and 3 of the open access framework relating to public electronic communications involving the offer of wholesale broadband access to end-users and unlimited access to network capacity or services composing the reference offer.
Regulating the use of messaging is particularly delicate because in terms of guaranteeing freedom, online security, access and quality, and protection of personal data, the use of the electronic communications network or service does not affect the integrity of the network or service itself.
In terms of the rules concerning prohibitive practices and consumer differentiation regarding discriminatory restrictions on access to or use of services or applications and catalogue price transparency applied by NRAs since May 15, 2019, to electronic communications services or electronic communications to end-users. In essence, the main features of this framework related to the issue of managing the use of electronic communications networks or services for purposes beyond electronic communications.
What makes managing the convergence of content and network services particularly challenging for the sector is that this generally involves films, TV programs, and games, which are subject to different types of controls than those related to information and communication purposes.
Live streaming raises different issues for regulators than the traditional telecommunications sector. The unique nature of the service, the technologies used, and the fact that there are different value chains for different types of services mean that regulators should not directly apply the principles and regulating approaches developed for traditional electronic communication services for live streaming services.
Emerging Trends and Future Opportunities
Given this trend, we propose that live streaming services evolve into platforms that promise opportunities for supporters to share in the benefits that stem from the events connected to their favorite broadcasters. As the structure of benefit sharing changes in this direction, the potential markets are expected to be expanded dramatically. Non-disputes have been raised surrounding the topics of formal closure or user shabad resolution. Moreover, fair benefit sharing issues may also cause a similar prompt need for broadcast regulations to appear in the near future. As fan communities are strengthened from the mutual communications in the course of watching broadcasts, market interests are uplifted markedly. Broadcast regulations targeted at the expansion of this new type of market interest are expected to promote its rapid development.
What truly sets live streaming platforms apart from other video delivery services is the direct interaction and involvement they enable between broadcasters and viewers. The platform and infrastructure of live streaming services have evolved to exploit this unique characteristic. To this end, various service features, such as integrated crowdfunding and merchandise sales, and the deployment of built-in game features, have been developed to motivate both viewers and broadcasters. The interaction and relationships broadcast create have evolved to a point that audiences are analogous to fan communities. The future of live streaming services lies in the realization of the potential of increasingly sophisticated fan communities. This has led to an emerging trend of not limiting service benefit sharing (e.g., advertising revenue sharing) to original broadcasters, but also providing a part of it (e.g., to the extent of their contribution/interest) to fans who have supported broadcasters.