Andrew Shell's Weblog

I’m looking for a product that makes it easy for users of Brazen Careerist to set up and broadcast webcasts to other members of our site. The idea is that we want in our UI for a user to schedule a webcast that they want to host. At the time of the event they go to the event page and assuming they’re logged on already authorize the widget to have access to their camera and they see themselves with a broadcast button. We will have our own chat on the page so the webcasting has to be done entirely on our page, nothing to download, no going to another website.

Here are my ideal requirements:

• Ideally something we can pay for to be white label
• Flash widget to embed on our website
• API so I can programmatically create new events (get a webcast token or something)
• If there is an admin=true or something variable set the widget is in admin mode and the viewer is given a login prompt. There should also be an API so I can integrate this login with our existing user authentication.
• Once the admin logs in they see themselves as the viewers would, only they have a button in the corner so they can start and stop broadcasting.
• If the admin=true variable had not been set then it’s just in viewer mode and all they see is the webcast if the admin is broadcasting.
• Extra points if you could configure an image to show when the video is not being webcast.

This seems super simple but I’m not finding a solution anywhere. Sites like UStream, JustinTV, Livestream and Vokle all have giant interfaces that even if you can embed the webcast on a web page, the admin is not on the website, but rather in some special admin. They also tend to have features like chat and whatnot all built in. I can’t find anything that is just super simple embedded webcast software. Am I just not finding it or doesn’t this exist?

Here’s an example mockup of what it should look like for a webcaster: