My Free Streaming Account Crashed! Now What?

Free streaming services are great for testing and using as a hobby service. I mean you can't beat the price. But what happens when free costs you viewers?

I have watched so many situations occur with "free streaming accounts", it seems as though the failure only occurs at the most important time. For example: Your sports team has used the free service all season long, it has been pretty good and for the most part the online fans have been able to watch the game. Then the team makes a run for the playoffs. The day of the big game you begin to stream to the free-service and something crashes. No fear just contact the free service provider for help.

You go to their website and click on support frantically looking for a phone number, the start of the game is 30 minutes away and you cannot get the video to stream to their free servers. You can find an "email us your question" page and an FAQ page but these are no help at least not under the pressure of a looming deadline. You need a phone number a live body, HELP!!

Somehow the service comes back online but it is buffering and the image is worse than you have ever seen. What is the problem and who can you contact for help?

As the saying goes "you get what you pay for". It is a free service after all. What do you expect, 24 x 7 technical support, live operators to identify a local Internet router failure? Is there any wonder why you have no call center to help you with the dreaded "blue screen"? Do you need to know why your camera no longer gets along with your laptop or you used to have audio but now you get nothing from my mixer? All you want at that moment is a solution, right?

Any one of these issues and sometimes several at once can and will occur at some time during a broadcast. This is why a service that charges a fee makes sense when you must deliver the big game. When your corporate image is at stake, why leave anything to chance? That isn't to say technical troubles are eliminated because you are now paying to stream. I hate to tell you this, but issues are still going to happen. Computers "kack", the public Internet goes down and once in a while someone plugs the microphone cable into the headphone jack. While your broadcast crew is freaking out it might be a really good idea to have a calm voice answer the 24 x 7 technical help line.

"Broadcast Operations, how can I be of assistance?" This is when the fee you have been paying is worth every penny. An expert who has been through all the live trouble situations and has the scars to prove it is now your lifeline. Typically within less than a minute the situation is diagnosed a solution is proposed and the fix gets put in place. Your game goes online, the audience is none the wiser and the broadcast crew focused back on the game.

Streaming video and Internet broadcasting is fast becoming a service that your audience expects. Now that they have a taste for it, they can't get enough. When you do it right you have the makings of your own broadcast media company, and why not? You have the asset, you have the opportunity to deliver it fans, maybe sell a bit of advertising or create a Pay per View. But if you server your fans a hit and miss free stream, you are saying to those fans, we don't value our asset enough to ensure first rate delivery.

It takes a long time to create trust and only a second to lose it. So be sure that you are confident with your provider. Know them on a first name basis and make sure they care as much about your broadcast as you do.