As some of you know I sometimes lifecast on Justin.tv. I really like the Justin.tv service, I’ve been with them since beta and they have really made a lot of improvements since that time. All of the chat features and video features are something that you won’t find with other services like this. I also have made a lot of friends on Justin.tv and because of that I don’t think I would ever move over to another service. Also Justin.tv is more of a community now, you have a profile where people can add you as a friend and leave comments etc. But earlier this month Yahoo Live was launched and I had to check it out.

Yahoo Live is the first live broadcasting service from a major company that I know of. All the others are small startups, so with the amount of money that Yahoo has to use on their projects I was excited to see what the service could offer. It is pretty easy getting setup, especially if you already have a Yahoo account. Just go to the Yahoo Live page, sign in, and then click on the Getting Started tab. From there you will be able to create your channel. Once you are in your channel you will see a small control panel in the bottom left. Here you can choose your video and sound settings. There are no advanced options you are able to just pick your camera and microphone. Once you have that setup you just hit the Go Live button and you are broadcasting.

The first thing that I noticed was the quality of the feed was not that great, especially compared to Justin.tv and other services. One thing that was really cool was if someone came into your channel and they were broadcasting their feed would come in at the bottom of the screen. You can be watching up to 4 different people. If there are more than 4 people broadcasting in your room you can drag and drop the feeds to be able to see who you want. I think that this feature is really cool, it allows you to see who is watching you and allows you to interact with them better. Yahoo Live also has chat, one thing that needs fixed is the front size. I think it should be a set size, I don’t want people in my room spamming in huge letters.

As a service I think that it is good, a lot better then the other services when they came out, but it still needs some work. I would like to see some advanced options for video and a better feed quality. Also as I said the chat text needs to be fixed. And I would like to see more of a community like Justin.tv. So for right now I will be staying on Justin.tv, but in the future I might switch over to Yahoo Live.