Live Internet: The Internet’s Future In The Making

Rohan Choudhary May 23, 2022

The internet has really come of age, and a big boost for this has been the Covid-19 pandemic. Almost 61% of households in India used the internet in 2021, compared to just 21 per cent in 2017, found a study by LIRNEasia found. Over 210 million users reportedly came online between 2020 and 2021 alone. The consumption of video content saw a huge boost, as the avenues for offline social interaction went down. On the Glance lock screen, the average time spent on video content tripled during this period across India and Southeast Asia!

During the same time, a very interesting new user behaviour also emerged, which has irrevocably changed the way content and commerce are consumed on the internet.

Before 2020, offline experiences such as concerts, sports matches, shopping at malls, carnivals, and parties, were quite integral to most people’s lives. During the lockdowns that resulted from the pandemic, consumers demonstrated a strong desire for having those experiences replicated online. Live online experiences, therefore, emerged as a solution and took off in a big way. A live-streamed music concert by K-Pop band BTS in June 2021 recorded 1.33 million viewers. In January 2021, Fortnite gamer David "TheGrefg" Cánovas Martínez smashed records with a live game stream that got over 2.4 million concurrent views. In 2020, the first 30 minutes of Alibaba’s Singles’ Day presales campaign on Taobao Live generated a whopping $7.5 billion in total transaction value. Closer home, the adoption of live streams on Glance in India rose meteorically and continues to see great traction. The writing is on the wall. ‘Live’ has now hit inflection point and is here to stay.

There are three major things which are making live streaming exciting and different from any other format of consumption seen on the internet till now – authenticity, interactivity and concurrency.

Live streaming brings creators and consumers together in an informal and less staged manner, allowing for very authentic conversations and leading to deeper connections. Interactions with creators have become part of consumers’ daily lives, a behaviour reminiscent of the daily soap era on TV. We have seen this phenomenon on Glance - where some of our game streamers see a dedicated fan base of 100,000 users tuning in daily to watch their streams.

Second, live streaming enables multiple touchpoints for live interactions between creators and fans, making the experience far more engaging and exciting. Take, for example, a live music performance online. It is clearly a superior experience when listeners not only get to enjoy their favourite singers’ music but can also request songs and express their feelings about the performance through emojis, comments, or virtual gifts for the performer. Live news debates can become more inclusive and enable passionate audiences to participate and voice their opinions in front of millions of consumers. In live gaming, consumers can express and react live online, as they play a game of online tambola for instance, with thousands of others.

Third, as the concurrency of live streams goes up, that is when more people join in and watch together, the excitement keeps building. Imagine a “Mexican wave” with thousands of emojis simultaneously

breaking out on a phone screen, or the ability to sing the national anthem with thousands of fellow sports lovers when you see India win a match. The possibilities are endless.

As live streaming sees adoption among consumers, multiple platforms will scramble to corner this market. However, there are a few critical factors for live streaming to succeed on a platform.

First, the importance of a high-quality production backed by strong moderation tools, cannot be overstated. Platforms with live streaming have a huge responsibility in ensuring that content is safe and premium. Roposo, India’s first live creator-led entertainment commerce platform, for example, provides creators with production tools for going live. It is planning to set up 100s of professional studios across India and abroad. Similarly, Glance uses artificial intelligence to moderate comments and interactions and can block users or stop streams which do not adhere to the guidelines.

The second critical factor for the success of live streaming is the ability to continually introduce exciting interactions to keep the fun alive. The ability of a platform to constantly innovate and provide unique interactions such as request boards, Mexican wave, audio drop-ins, live mini-games etc, will play an extremely important role in ensuring that the consumers stay engaged.

The third and the most critical element in solving for discovery. Most social apps have fallen short when it comes to this. Often, when a user opens the social app, there may not be an ongoing live stream happening at that time. When there is interesting live content, no one is watching because they don’t know that such a show is happening. While apps typically resort to sending out push notifications to drive discovery, notifications are far too abused already. We have looked to solve this by enabling live discovery right on the lock screen of the phone – a surface that users interact with the most every day.

These are still early days for live internet. Platforms across the globe are solving these teething troubles. However, it is certain that live will fundamentally change how content is created and consumed across industries – be it in entertainment, commerce, education and even healthcare - in the future.

*The author is Rohan Choudhary, Vice President & GM, Glance Feed, and founding team member, Glance