Bambuser AB (publ) is a Swedish company, founded in 2007. Bambuser provides a platform for mobile live video streaming but in 2014, they shifted focus to their B2B offering, providing mobile live video for brands, organizations and app developers. Bambuser's HQ is situated in Stockholm, Sweden, with an office in

Turku, Finland Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...

. The Swedish office concentrates on business development, marketing and European sales, while the Turku office focuses on technology and development. In May 2017, Bambuser was listed on Nasdaq First North stock exchange (ticker: Buser).

Products

Bambuser's Mobile Live Video Platform

Bambuser offers an end-to-end solution for live streaming that companies use to integrate live video in their workflows and apps.

Bambuser Software Development Kit

Bambuser SDKs allow developers to integrate live video broadcasting and playback in

mobile apps A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on des ...

History

Bambuser started out as an online community that was an interactive mobile

video streaming Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...

platform which enabled users to effortlessly stream and share live video using a

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

or a computer equipped with a webcam. In addition to being accessible on the Bambuser website, broadcasts were also able to be shared on various social media websites such as

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

Tumblr Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...

and

Blogger A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

. The Bambuser community was a free to use service for private individuals and representatives of charities.

Bambuser Community in the Media

In 2010, Finnish broadcasting channel

YLE Yleisradio Oy ( Finnish, literally "General Radio Ltd." or "General Broadcast Ltd."; abbr. Yle ; sv, Rundradion Ab, italics=no), translated to English as the Finnish Broadcasting Company, is Finland's national public broadcasting company, found ...

adopted Bambuser as an alternative platform for their online and news broadcasts. This allowed YLE to get more live-coverage on their webpage, and allowed the viewers to interact with the reporters on the scene. In November 2010, Bambuser was one of the finalists in The Europas, the European Startup Awards. 33,126 votes were cast across 23 categories, and eight judges deliberated over the results. On January 1, 2011, the Swedish Pirate party celebrated its five-year anniversary with a Bambuser live broadcast with party leader

Rick Falkvinge Rick Falkvinge (born Dick Greger Augustsson on 21 January 1972) is a Swedish information technology entrepreneur and founder of the Swedish Pirate Party. He is currently a political evangelist with the party, spreading the ideas across the worl ...

and vice party leader Anna Troberg. Live in the video, Falkvinge sent a tweet saying he stepped down as party leader, and he announced that his successor would be Troberg.

Bambuser Community use in the Middle East

During the demonstrations in Egypt, Bambuser (along with microblogging site

) was blocked by the government. Shortly thereafter most of the country's internet traffic was restricted. During this blackout, Bambuser set up a special Egypt page on their website, collecting all the streams originating from Egypt and the protests on

Tahrir Square Tahrir Square ( ar, ميدان التحرير ', , English: Liberation Square), also known as "Martyr Square", is a major public town square in downtown Cairo, Egypt. The square has been the location and focus for political demonstrations in Cai ...

. This page later evolved into the

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

page. During the protests in Bahrain, a similar situation emerged, as government officials blocked access to the Bambuser homepage. In the Syrian civil war, Bambuser was used to a great extent by citizen journalists in an effort to document and raise awareness of the events taking place inside the country. On 17 February 2012, Syria was reported to have blocked access to the Bambuser website. During the Gezi protests in Turkey, citizens started broadcasting the police violence and oppression of the AKP regime with the Bambuser app. As a response, the Prime Ministry banned Bambuser in Turkey illegally, without a court decision. The ban was still ongoing as 4 April 2014.

Associated Press

The Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newsp ...

are stakeholders in Bambuser, and are active users. Thousands of AP reporters worldwide are equipped with the Bambuser app for capturing and broadcasting live video and photo content. AP entered into a partnership deal connected to the Bambuser Community in April 2012. Since then, users of the Bambuser service have had the option to share their broadcasts with the AP. The partnership enables AP to use Bambuser as a source for

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 f ...

coming from citizen journalists. In addition to sharing the actual content, users were required to disclose some form of contact information which enables AP to verify the authenticity of the broadcast material and properly credit the author. On June 20, 2013 the partnership between the two companies was extended when the AP announced their purchase of a minority stake in Bambuser.AP buys stake in Bambuser, strengthens live UGC video capability"
''Associated Press''. June 20, 2013. Retrieved August 2, 2013.

References

{{reflist Streaming software Companies based in Stockholm Swedish companies established in 2007