Spreecast: Where Video Meets Social

Trisha Cruz November 18, 2011 Tweet

Recently-launched Spreecast, a social video platform that lets people broadcast together, is claiming to be a hybrid of YouTube, Skype, Twitter, and Facebook all rolled into one. Here’s the formula:

• 1 part user-uploaded video content a la YouTube
• 1 part face-to-face chat a la Skype
• 1 part people and topics you follow on Twitter
• 1 part friends you interact with on Facebook

Add a sprinkle of your favorite blogs and media, blend ingredients together, and enjoy. Created by StubHub founder Jeff Fluhr, Spreecast is all about creating shared experiences via social video streams.

In every Spreecast stream, up to 4 people can be live on camera at a time. Like uStream, Spreecast allows these users to view and talk with each other on the air and also interact with all the people who are watching by responding to their comments and questions, joining them in the chat room, or Tweeting @them. Video feeds can be broadcast publicly or privately.

When you’re watching a spreecast, you can invite friends to view the spreecast with you via e-mail, Twitter, Facebook or Google+. Everything is integrated in one place.

If you’re the producer of a spreecast, you can bring as many people as you want on and off camera. Spreecasts are recorded live and then made immediately available for playback.

Spreecast is far from the first social video broadcast platform available, with Google+ Hangouts, ClipSync, LiveLead and of course uStream all respected names in the neighborhood. Most of these alternatives focus on private video chat between friends, while Spreecast is more intended for public broadcasts – but Google+ did just enable a public broadcast mode called Hangouts on Air, so Spreecast is still up against some stiff competition.

To join in on the Spreecasting fun, you can easily sign in with Facebook or Twitter, or create a Spreecast account if you want to. As a registered Spreecaster, you can join a spreecast on camera, submit comments or questions to people, chat with other viewers and follow people and channels. If you don’t feel like registering, you can still watch whatever spreecast you feel like.

You can check out their beta site and start spreecasting here.