Blab.im: Why Your Business Should Consider Blab

Do you host live-streaming video?

Want to hear about the latest live-casting technology?

To discover more about Blab, I interview Joel Comm.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode I interview Joel Comm, the author of many books, including Twitter Power 3.0. He also is host of The Joel Comm Show and he's all in on Blab!

Joel will explore Blab live casting and why your business might want to consider using it.

You'll discover the difference between Blab.im and other live-streaming platforms, as well as some tips to get started.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Blab.im
How Joel got started with video

Joel shares how he signed up for his first YouTube account in 2006. The next year, he decided that video online needed to be kicked up a notch.

Inspired by the rise of YouTube and the reality show The Apprentice, in 2007 Joel produced and hosted the world's first competitive Internet reality show, called The Next Internet Millionaire, which received an honorary Webby award for reality TV.

In 2008 UStream.tv became one of the first tools for streaming live video from a desktop, so he started doing The Joel Comm Show from his offices with co-host Dan Nickerson. They did a weekly interactive show that was usually about an hour long. Sometimes they would have a guest in his studio office, and other times they would just engage with the people who were commenting. It's very similar to how people comment on Blab.

Joel believes streaming video is a great way to communicate, broadcast, share and deliver content, and build community.

Listen to the show to learn what was involved with filming The Next Internet Millionaire.

Joel and Blab

Joel, who has been using Meerkat, Periscope and Live for Facebook Mentions for several months, thinks it was Mia Voss who first told him about Blab. She mentioned it at the beginning of August, and he started using Blab a couple of weeks later. He has been immersed in the platform ever since.

He hosts two different shows and then logs on at other random times, either to do a Blab that's not really a show, to hang out and talk with people or to be interviewed on somebody else's show.

Joel explains that Blab, in its simplest form, is a video conferencing tool that allows up to four people to be on screen at once. It's integrated with a chat room, and whoever wants to watch a blab can do so. Viewers are also able to interact with each other and the hosts.

Blab is integrated with Twitter (your login is your Twitter account), and you're able to easily tweet from the Blab interface. There's a mobile app available for iOS devices and an Android app is on the way.

What's so cool about Blab is that it works, Joel says. While Google hangouts sometimes require a whole tutorial, Blab is so simple that most people get it intuitively. Audience members click to request to join a seat. When the host approves you, you're on the show.

People ask Joel what's better: Periscope or Blab. He believes that's not the right question, because it's comparing apples to oranges.

Periscope, Meerkat and Facebook Live Mentions are all one-to-many broadcasting apps. They allow one person to instantly reach and talk at their audience. It's only a conversation in that those watching can comment, and whoever is hosting can refer to those questions and comments on video. Unless you have somebody right next to you on the screen, it's just one person.

Blab puts the "social" component into social media in the most profound and effective way. Blab allows people to be face to face in real time with...