Ustream's Watershed Online Broadcasting Beta Available

Watershed
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"Watershed is the private label version of Ustream™s proven and chosen Flash-based live, interactive broadcasting platform. Ustream™s technology has powered live broadcasting for Barack Obama's campaign website as well as for numerous other high-profile partners. With Watershed, customers will be able to broadcast live on the Internet using a fully customizable player with a variety of different features and options including chat, privacy, and analytics. The product is an all-in-one, easily deployed self-serve solution for both large and small organizations. By using Watershed, customers will be able to build genuine communities and relationships around a shared online experience...."

Watershed sounds like the best thing since sliced bread - and probably is an impressive service. I use Ustream's older system, by the way.

When you get into the Terms of Service, you'll discover that Watershed is a beta version: "...Watershed Services and Watershed Content may not operate properly, be in final form or fully functional; ... may contain errors, design flaws or other problems; ... may result in unexpected results ...."

That sort of thing is why I read TOS before signing up for something - particularly if I'm going to pay for it.

That said, I've used Ustream's non-Watershed service since July 1, 2009: and am very satisfied with it's performance. Demands on my browser put a bit of a strain on my five-year-old comptuer's resources, but it's a huge step up from what was making my webcam go before that. (Small Town America: Minnesota: "... there's nowhere else on earth that I would rather be")

From a quick look at Watershed Elements, it looks like using Watershed doesn't require programming experience - although you have the option of designing your own broadcaster, using the Watershed logic for framework operations. All that takes is Flash/ActionScript3 programming experience.

The pricing looks reasonable: starting at $49.00 a month. That's out of my range, this year, but not every business has the sort of budget I do.

Overall, Watershed looks like something worth looking into for online interactive broadcasting.