Everyone's a Star

The ever popular live webcast Justin.TV has turned Justin Kan into an overnight web celebrity. He's opened his life up to the entire world, everything from police raids, landlord eviction, even things in Justin's personal life. Justin Twitters his goings on and keeps everyone in the loop about what he's doing. At just two months old, the site has really gotten some great traction. So, what's next for Justin? They are opening the site up for other live webcasters to become the next Justin. Via TechCrunch, you'll be able to create your own URL's, broadcast your own Twitters, real time chat, calendar, everything.

This idea is really really interesting. I'm not sure how much traction it will gain, although as hardware costs continue to drop a decent webcam attached to your hat (ala Justin) would set you back about $50. Further as we are already impatient enough when you don't respond to an email immediately (and hence IM is so popular) we can actually see what you are doing as to why you aren't responding. Could Justin.tv be the next MySpace?

I don't know about Justin, but I know that the majority of us can't stand to be "on" all the time (like in the Truman Show). Even some stars need their alone, quiet time. Justin is really sacrificing his life by broadcasting 24/7. I think college kids could probably get away with putting a webcam on your head, but what about when you "grow up" and get a real job? I don't think your employer would be too happy.

But the real value in this then becomes who we are putting our webcam on top of. While the rest of the magazine industry has been shrinking, we've seen growth in celebrity gossip magazines. We've seen "glimpse" type shows like Curb your Enthusiasm (look into a day in the life of Larry David), or Entourage (look into a day in the life of a movie star) really take off. However, these are things that are made to entertain. Could you imagine the laws that would be broken if we put a Justin.tv on Donald Trump's head? All of the deals that he would be doing would be known before they were announced. Sergey Brin's head? You'd be able to know what other medium sized company he was going to buy next, run up the stock price, and wait for the official announcement (although I'm sure GOOG traders are watching Sergey's Justin.tv page too). So it really comes down to celebrities and Hollywood celebrities at that, otherwise I'm sure alot of information that we don't want out there will get out when we forget to turn off our Justin cam.