What is Traditional Live Streaming?
Traditional live streaming refers to a form of entertainment that record and broadcasts video in real-time. As the rise of online video platforms, the traditional video and social media websites started their own streaming services. With the internet become universal and computer computing capabilities have increased, the live broadcasts that can only be carried out by television station and media enterprises have expanded to general users and households on the internet. The platform such as YouTube Live, Twitch, Facebook Watch and etc become popular.
YouTube Live, launched November 22–23, 2008.
Facebook Watch, announced in January 2017.
The biggest difference between the live stream and traditional uploaded video is that the viewer can interact with the anchor through the live chat during the stream and the traditional video can only leave comments down below. The anchor can adjust the content of the program or please the audience according to the feedback of the audience.
What is Virtual YouTubers?
Virtual YouTubers(Vtubers) are YouTubers (online entertainers) who are represented by digital avatars generated by computer graphics. (1)
Tsukino Mito, an example of a female virtual YouTuber
Belmond Banderas, an example of a male virtual YouTuber
The technology was first founded in 1985 by the company SimGaphics, which has been providing creative animation solutions for live events since 1991. The word Virtual YouTubers has not been mentioned until Kizuna AI in 2016. In late 2017, Kizuna AI received a huge popularity spike, going from 200,000 to over 2,000,000 subscribers in 10 months. (4) Virtual YouTuber's main market is in Japan and mainland China. In Japan, once the virtual idol becomes popular, it was widely praised by Japanese society, because it only needs the actor to have a specialty on their voice and leave the other work such as character design or program planning to other members of the company.
On the other hand, the traditional idol/star need more requirement, they usually need a good looking face, pleasant voice, suitable makeup, action design and outstanding performance like. More importantly, the security of the idol has been improved, because the identity of the people behind the scenes is a secret, which is the consensus of the industry and it is impolite to actively listen. Thus, the probability of the Stabbing of Mayu Tomita case can be greatly reduced. (5)
Mayu Tomita, a Japanese pop star, was stabbed in the neck and chest area 60 times by her fan
In addition, the sexual harassment of idols, tracking madness, kidnapping, and other crimes that requiring exact appearance and address will be reduced. Vtuber's market has only just begun in China. Earlier this year, Japan's vtuber company Hololive conducted a seven-day broadcast on Chinese social media Bilibili to celebrate the Chinese Spring Festival. The plan is extremely successful. It can be said that the plan opened up Chinese vtuber market and officially brought vtubers into many Chinese people's field of vision. Until 8/1/2019, the followers of some vtubers on Chinese social networking sites have far surpassed the follower on YouTube.
Hololive, Vtuber company in Japan.
Bilibili, Chinese social media, popular in young people.
In January 2019, the daily active user was 76 million.
As of May 28, 2018, the virtual YouTuber had about 3,000 people, a total of 10.89 million subscribers, and video hits over 690 million. (6) By April 2019, the virtual YouTuber had about 6,000 people and about 20 million subscribers. The number has almost doubled, which proved that the market still has large demand, and it also shows that the industry is on the rise. With the rise of virtual YouTuber, virtual YouTuber companies have emerged, among which the most famous are Upd8, ENTUM, Nijisanji, Hololive and etc.
Nijisanji, or Rainbow Club
Source
1. Virtual YouTubers,
2. SimGraphics VActor™, the official website
3. Japan's latest big thing: 'virtual YouTubers', KAZUAKI NAGATA, JUL 17, 2018
4. From Japanese anime characters to Barbie, virtual YouTubers talk and act just like people — and they could change the way we all interact forever, Bryan Lufkin, 2nd October 2018
5. Stabbing of Mayu Tomita,
I’m so interested in your introduction to the Vtubers. Thanks for sharing this new platform. It looks like to interact with carton roles, and this new technology is really fantastic. Does this technology base on AI technology?
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