A Silicon Valley startup is aiming to disrupt the conventional media industry with YakSee, a new live streaming app — and The Daily Caller News Foundation has been given a sneak peak.
“YakSee allows us to replicate the functions of a newsroom without the high cost,” says Sean Moody, TheDCNF’s director of video.
Sending cumbersome camera crews to a scene is often an arduous, time consuming process, he explained.
With YakSee, “We can send a reporter into the field with just a cell phone and create a video product that until recently, required expensive news trucks and equipment,” Moody said.
The platform, based on multiple patented technologies, enables users to have their own channel that can be broadcast to hundreds of thousands of viewers around the world. TheDCNF is an early partner, and the first in news media.
The Daily Caller’s studio. Pictured from L to R: Saagar Enjeti (national security reporter), Christian Datoc (senior reporter), Christopher Bedford (editor in chief of TheDCNF) and Sean Moody (director of video). Phillip Stucky (politics reporter) is seen on the television screen in the background using YakSee.
TheDCNF uses YakSee to communicate with a reporter out in the field, and remotely include them in studio interviews.
YakSee also provides users the ability to access an analytic platform, including metrics like the amount of people watching at a specific times and their general locations.
Pictured: Sean Moody (director of video) using the technology on a tablet.
The service is not just exclusive to digital media outlets. Anyone can become a live reporter nearly immediately using only a cell phone.
Shah Talukder, founder and CEO of YakSee, stresses that his platform is interactive, meaning, “you can call viewers into the broadcast from their phones — video and audio. No streaming service can do that. They may say they are interactive, but all they do is allow text or emojis.”
The platform, Talukder says, is not meant to replace traditional broadcasting, but to add to it.
“It actually enhances the broadcast experience by providing real audience interaction. Broadcasters, including the News Foundation, have been looking for this for years,” he told TheDCNF. “You can use YakSee itself to broadcast, but you can also broadcast using your existing network and use YakSee to introduce interactivity to your broadcasts.”
He also touts that the app eliminates the typical “10-15 second delay”– a conspicuous problem that makes the interaction between a broadcaster and a viewer less fluid and more awkward.
“YakSee has been a great tool for us,” Christopher Bedford, editor in chief of TheDCNF, explained. “It has let us bring in reporters from all over D.C. and the country and interact with them from right in our studio without having to spend hundreds of thousands dollars on equipment.”
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