Livestream Beta-Launches New Player, Customization and Social Features

Livestream, (formerly Mogulus), a New York-based company which offers a platform that enables amateurs and professionals to produce and distribute live TV on the Internet, last week announced the beta-launch of a range of new features as part of what it calls its "Livestream User Experience Initiative." According to the company, the new features, which can be accessed by adding "/beta" to the end of the URL of any Livestream channel or clip page, include:

• A new look for Livestream channel and clip pages, which the company bills as "cleaner, friendlier and more intuitive."
• The ability for Livestream "broadcasters" to customize their channel pages. While only the background is currently customizable, the company says the foreground will be customizable "very soon."
• Shortened clip page URL's for easier sharing.
• A redesigned 16:9 video player, which Livestream says is "lightweight, embeddable and easily customizable." Among other things, according to the company, the new player offers "full page widescreen expand mode," a "pop-out" feature, and the ability to customize such features as color and size, as well as such specifics as auto-play and auto-mute. The player has been designed so that multiple players can be embedded into the same page, Livestream says, and the embedded thumbnails are constantly updated in real time when the players are inactive. The company promises that it will support its old embeddable player "as long as is necessary."
• A new "player-side chat companion" which the company says lets viewers discuss live videos in real time using Facebook, Twitter or the "soon-to-be-released updated Livestream chat." Advancements of the new Livestream chat, according to the company, include "a new cleaner look, ability to embed the chat separately, login required option for chatting, IP banning, easy moderation within the chat window itself (no need to use the studio) and the ability to promote any user to chat moderator." The chat widget will also be embeddable "very shortly," the company adds.
• "One-click" sharing via Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Digg and Delicious. Customization of the new embedded player is also accessible from the new Share page, the company says.
• A new browsable and searchable "Video Library" which is billed as making it "infinitely easier" for viewers to find videos and which, because it is HTML-based, allows search engines to crawl and return results for individual videos.