IBM Watson Media (formerly Ustream and IBM Cloud Video) is an American virtual events platform company which is a division of

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

. Prior to the IBM acquisition, it had more than 180 employees across San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Budapest offices. Ustream had received $11.1 million in

Series A funding A series A is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. It can be followed by the word round, investment or financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in excha ...

for new product development from Doll Capital Management (DCM) and investors Labrador Ventures and Band of Angels. Since 2016, it has been a division of

. On April 1, 2018, two years after its purchase, Ustream changed its name to IBM Cloud Video to reflect its new ownership, but rapidly changed that name to IBM Watson Media to reflect the embedded artificial intelligence capabilities of IBM's Watson.

History

Ustream was launched when the founders (John Ham,

Brad Hunstable Fred Bradley Hunstable (born 1978) is an American businessman and the co-founder and CEO of the electric motor company Linear Labs. Linear Labs was founded by Hunstable in 2014 with his father, Fred Hunstable. Brad is also the co-founder and for ...

and Gyula Fehér) wanted a way for their friends in the US Army, who were deployed overseas in the

Iraq War The Iraq War (), also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a prolonged conflict in Iraq lasting from 2003 to 2011. It began with 2003 invasion of Iraq, the invasion by a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition, which ...

, to be able to communicate with their families. A product like Ustream would provide them with a way to talk to all of their relatives at once when free time in the war zone was limited. WebWare
Merry Christmas, Mom: Ustream links soldiers with home
, December 14, 2007

Acquisition

Early investors included

DCM Ventures DCM Ventures (commonly DCM, formerly Doll Capital Management) is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California specializing in early-stage investments in private technology companies. The firm is regarded as one of the f ...

and

Softbank is a Japanese multinational Investment company, investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, that focuses on investment management. The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services ...

, the latter of which invested $20 million in 2010 with an option to invest additional capital. On January 21, 2016,

acquired Ustream for up to $150 million. It was combined with

Aspera Aspera may refer to: Music * Aspera (band), an American indie rock band * ''(a)spera'', a 2009 album by Mirah * Above Symmetry, a Norwegian progressive metal band originally known as Aspera * "Aspera", the lead track from ''We Will Become Like Bir ...

, Clearleap, and Cleversafe to form IBM's Cloud Video BM Watson Mediaunit. IBM envisioned the use of its technology as part of an enterprise video offering.

Notable users

IBM Cloud Video was used by politicians such as

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, lawyer and diplomat. She was the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, a U.S. senator represent ...

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

John Edwards Johnny Reid Edwards (born June 10, 1953) is an American lawyer and former politician who represented North Carolina in the United States Senate from 1999 to 2005. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the vice presidential nominee under ...

, to video game streamers, to artists such as

Kanye West Ye ( ; born Kanye Omari West ; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer and record producer. One of the most prominent figures in hip-hop, he is known for his varying musical style and polarizing cultural and political commentary. After ...

Linkin Park Linkin Park is an American Rock music, rock band formed in Agoura Hills, California, in 1996. The band's current lineup consists of vocalist/rhythm guitarist/keyboardist Mike Shinoda, lead guitarist Brad Delson, DJ/turntablist Joe Hahn, bass ...

Tori Amos Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full ...

Deadmau5 Joel Thomas Zimmerman (born January 5, 1981), known professionally as deadmau5 (pronounced "dead-mouse"), is a Canadian electronic music producer and disc jockey, DJ. His musical style mostly includes progressive house and electro house music, ...

and the

Plain White T's The Plain White T's are an American pop rock band from Lombard, Illinois, formed in 1997 by high school friends Tom Higgenson, Dave Tirio, and Ken Fletcher, and joined a short time later by Steve Mast. The group had a mostly underground followin ...

. Lifecasters such as iJustine and E-TARD The LifeCaster have also used IBM Cloud Video. Notable companies/universities/other who have used IBM Cloud Video include

Salesforce Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, artificial intelligence, and ap ...

, University of Pennsylvania Wharton,

Herman Miller MillerKnoll, Inc., doing business as Herman Miller, is an American company that produces office furniture, equipment, and home furnishings. Its best known designs include the Aeron chair, Noguchi table, Marshmallow sofa, Mirra chair, and t ...

Mazda is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Fuchū, Hiroshima (town), Fuchū, Hiroshima Prefecture, Hiroshima, Japan. The company was founded on January 30, 1920, as Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd. ...

, US Open,

Fox Sports (United States) The Fox Sports Media Group is the American sports programming division of Fox Corporation that is responsible for sports broadcasts carried by the Fox Broadcasting Company, as well as operating television networks Fox Sports 1 (FS1) and Fox Sp ...

World Cup,

USA Network USA Network (or simply USA) is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Media Group division of Comcast's NBCUniversal. It was launched in 1977 as Madison Square Garden Sports Network, one of the first national sports ...

: ''

Mr. Robot ''Mr. Robot'' is an American drama thriller television series created by Sam Esmail for USA Network. It stars Rami Malek as Elliot Alderson, a cybersecurity engineer and hacker with social anxiety disorder, clinical depression, and dissoci ...

'',

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

for the

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013, in ...

University of Georgia The University of Georgia (UGA or Georgia) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia, United States. Chartered in 1785, it is the oldest public university in th ...

Grohe Grohe AG is a German plumbing fixtures manufacturer with its registered office in Hemer and headquarters in Düsseldorf. In 2014 Grohe became part of the Japanese Lixil Group. The company generated consolidated sales revenues of in 2017. Grohe ...

, a California superior court and

Roland Corporation is a Japanese multinational manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, electronic equipment, and software. It was founded by Ikutaro Kakehashi in Osaka on 18 April 1972. In 2005, its headquarters relocated to Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefect ...

Plans

The plans for IBM Cloud Video are, from cheapest to most expensive, Silver, Gold and Platinum. IBM offers a 30-day free trial for IBM Cloud Video which includes all the features of Silver/Gold/Platinum, phone and chat support with a live monitoring console and a single admin and user seat. Here is a comparison table of features including Silver, Gold and Platinum. Other features not included due to being the same in all plans include HD transcoding, phone and

chat Chat or chats may refer to: Communication * Conversation, particularly casual * Online chat, text message communication over the Internet in real-time * Synchronous conferencing, a formal term for online chat * SMS chat, a form of text messagi ...

support with a live monitoring console, video embed control and

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

access, channel branding,

passwords A password, sometimes called a passcode, is secret data, typically a string of characters, usually used to confirm a user's identity. Traditionally, passwords were expected to be memorized, but the large number of password-protected services ...

and a registration gate, a chat, Q&A, polling and clickable video overlays, an automatic archive with AI

closed captions Closed captioning (CC) is the process of displaying text on a television, video screen, or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information, where the viewer is given the choice of whether the text is displayed. Closed cap ...

, and simulated live and playlists.

Automatic content blocking

IBM Watson Media uses a copyright enforcement service provided by Vobile, which uses a proprietary

fingerprinting A fingerprint is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. The recovery of partial fingerprints from a crime scene is an important method of forensic science. Moisture and grease on a finger result in fingerprints on surfa ...

system to automatically detect copyrighted content. This system has been known to generate

false positives A false positive is an error in binary classification in which a test result incorrectly indicates the presence of a condition (such as a disease when the disease is not present), while a false negative is the opposite error, where the test res ...

, blocking content that should fall under

fair use Fair use is a Legal doctrine, doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to bal ...

, or which has been specifically licensed by the stream originator. In one such incident, the official livecast of the 2012

Hugo Award The Hugo Award is an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year, given at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) and chosen by its members. The award is administered by th ...

ceremony was terminated because it incorporated authorized clips of nominated television shows and movies, causing "a flood of livid Twitter messages". The following day, Ustream apologized for the incident and temporarily disabled automatic blocking while they adjusted the system to "better balance the needs of broadcasters, viewers, and copyright holders".

References

External links

* {{Internet streaming services 2016 mergers and acquisitions Android (operating system) software IBM acquisitions IBM cloud services Internet properties established in 2007 IOS software Live streaming services Video hosting Video software