Covid-19 has drastically changed the landscape of our lives, from wearing face masks everywhere we go to the still uncertain future of reopening. The world of music has been struggling to cope with the loss of live events and festivals; in response, the world of live streaming has sky rocketed into the spotlight. Many artists are using it in creative ways to bring the excitement and vibe of a show to our bedrooms: DJ sets on balconies, weekend long streams, concerts in empty venues, streams for charities, and more.
However, there have been struggles with live streaming. With so many different platforms to host it from, it can be difficult to find and tune into the stream you are looking for. Streaming is also relatively easier to do than putting on a full live show, thus there are a huge number of live streams going on at any one time. As a result, these two factors often make watching live streams more complex than it should be. OnNow.tv was founded by Stephan Jacobs, Mathew Adell, Terrence Scoville and Henry Strange as a direct response to these challenges.
Jacobs and Strange shared their unique insight into its development. Both of them have a long history in the music industry: Jacobs has been producing music for over fifteen years. He has led multiple music projects, including Kether, Pizza Party, Bosa, and his own Jacobs material. Strange produces hip-hop and dance music. He is also the owner of Strange Electronic, who manufacture hardware as well as software for live performance use.
The genesis of OnNow.tv began when the coronavirus hit the hardest. “Right around when we went into lockdown……. we both are in the touring business so everything shut down, meaning there were no shows so even what my company does was rendered useless,” explains Strange. “We were scrambling to come up with ideas to help us all survive and solve this coronavirus problem; Stephan and I talk almost every day, and were tossing ideas around with one idea centered on live streams. Live streams became a hot item, and one of the most difficult things to do with them is figuring out when they are going on.
“We are all performers and had our own livestreams; and it’s hard to round up all your friends, let them know when you are going to go on, and make sure they get there on time. Usually in the first thirty minutes of a lot of sets, there is no one there because they are just realizing you started already. So, we had the idea of a livestream guide.”
With the idea in place, they started hammering out the specifics that would make it a reality. “Originally, it was called OnNowGuide and was heavily modeled after TV Guide, even going so far as to look like TV Guide,” says Strange. “Then we were thinking of making it simplified like Craigslist – something where people could just jump on it and see what livestreams were popping off. But that wasn’t quite it so we just kept throwing ideas for how it should work out. That was in the beginning of March, and the beginning of OnNow.tv”
The platform itself is a creative mix of factors that make it well equipped to become a hub for live streams. “It’s a live stream guide,” elaborates Strange. The idea is that the viewer can discover livestreams and find ones they didn’t know about. We have specific ones that we feature which we think are extraordinary in both quality and content. The viewer has the opportunity to add their livestreams into a watchlist, similarly to how it works for a movie in Netflix. So, they can always go back and go through their own list of things they want to see. Basically, it helps the viewer narrow down what they are interested in and save all those things. All of the things that get saved have a notification, such as an email, thirty minutes before a stream is due to start, so that people can watch it from the very start. On the livestream host side, it works kind of like Eventbrite. We aren’t a host for livestreams, i.e. we aren’t like Twitch or YouTube live but instead are a marketing platform for livestreams.
“This means that if you have streams on Twitch, Facebook, YouTube, etc. and want a central place to display them, you can do so on our OnNow.tv Profile page,” adds Jacobs.
“Thus, they can promote the event page to their fan base,” continues Strange. “This is especially useful if you have the stream in multiple locations, as they can all be represented in one place. And the fanbase will get the notifications thirty minutes before the stream starts. This makes it a handy tool for both ends, the viewer and the livestream host.”
As with any company there have been hardships throughout its development, but one came from a surprising source. “About two weeks into launching it – it was of course in a rough stage – there was another site that launched and was doing the same exact thing,” relates Strange. “It was called LivePilot.io and was started by Matt Adell, who is the ex-CEO of Beatport and also worked for Napster back in the day. He saw our site, got excited about it, and we merged the companies. So, he is now the CEO of OnNow.tv. It was a challenge, especially as it was such a raw dog idea that suddenly became a sort of corporate merger.”
Overall, this is a platform with a lot of promise. Live streaming is only going to continue to grow in popularity, and a tool like this one is only going to help in exploring the landscape of live streams. As it continues to host more and more content, OnNow.tv’s ability to spread all kinds of new music is only going to increase. Check it out ASAP!!