Mom, I’m the streamer now!
Hi, everyone, my name is Vanya and I’m the teamlead at Tinkoff.ru. I’m also a member of the program committee of Frontend Conf and RIT++. So perhaps you will be interested in my thoughts about online performances.
The coronavirus epidemic has affected many areas, including the event scene. Conference organizers have to look for workarounds and come up with new formats. You have probably already seen the announcements of meet-up and major conferences online. Believe me, these are only the first attempts of the organizers and the brainstorming that is now underway in this area will lead us to much more spectacular formats.
Perhaps this new reality and online conferences will stand in line with offline events — time will tell. In this article I would like to share my view on what an online event should really look like.
Let’s start
To get a better sense of “What does the speaker need now?”, to make his speech interesting, spectacular and inspiring, I propose to look at the sphere that originally originated online and still continues to exist successfully there — cybersports.
If you have ever opened twitch.tv and watched the streaming of your favorite games, you already know what your 60 minutes of conference broadcasting should look like.
Twitch.tv is a resource with a multimillion audience. People watch the streaming instead of YouTube, TV and spend hours and days with streamers on the broadcast. Twitch broadcasts cybersports disciplines that accumulate more views than rating talk shows or sports events on TV or on YouTube. Top streamers, like top bloggers, sign advertising contracts with the largest companies in the gaming industry and collect on their broadcasts tens and hundreds of thousands of viewers. The International’s Grand Final was watched at the peak of almost two million viewers.
Let’s get back to the show
For 40–60 minutes of your broadcast at the conference, you’ll have to live as a streamer. Let’s start on the technical side.
Internet connection
When was the last time you called your Internet provider?
You should call him again a couple of weeks before the show, tell him you’re seeing a network malfunction. The provider will do a series of actions that will reboot your equipment. That’s enough for a start. Next, you run a ping to a popular resource and see if you have a stable internet connection? If so, then fine. This item is done. Oh, and also, no wi-fi connection on the broadcast, just the wire.
Devices
Top streamers usually have sponsored devices. Also, they have quality light and a good angle from the camera. If you do not have a sponsor, you will have to buy a couple of quality devices. Well, at least:
- Headphones with a good microphone. Believe me, if your sound is bad, then your memes no one will appreciate, and useful information to convey to the listener you can not. And no Apple Airpods! Their sound is disgusting.
- A good webcam.
- Good light. Believe me, there’s plenty of light on Aliexpress.com. I ordered the light for my office blog on that site. All in all, you’re gonna need that kind of circular light.
And more:
- It’s a quality chair. If you sit on a crooked stool with a crooked back, you’ll get tired quickly. You can buy an average chair at around $ 500. After your performance, your neck and back will finally stop hurting when you work from home. I think it’s a good side effect.
- Come up with an interesting composition in the frame. No need to sit with a white wall in the background. All sorts of books on programming, your favorite games, and the stuff will decorate your frame.
- If you have pets, their appearance in the frame in the background will look… kawaii!
You and your surroundings
Only pets should walk in the background for 60 minutes. Imagine you’re telling a report, and your daddy in the background walked in the fridge without a T-shirt. Or your wife is on the phone. That would ruin the impression of your speech.
You should go to the shower before, wash your head, brush your hair. You don’t have to wear a jacket and tie. But you shouldn’t sit in stretched-out sweatshirts or sweatshirts either.
Ask the neighbors not to drill the walls for those 60 minutes. If instead of the neighbors you have a construction crew working behind the wall — a small gift will help them make a break for a couple of hours. Otherwise, the soundtrack to your performance will be the sound of a punch and hammer.
When you perform offline in front of the audience, it’s easier to interact with the audience. Which one of us did not raise his hand at the presentation? Online it’s different, you can ask people to put a “+” in the chat. But it will be much cooler if you come up with something more interesting “+”. Any creative person is welcome here.
Software
If you like Kali Linux, then look to the OBS. For those who don’t want to bother with building software, I suggest using streamlabs. It has everything that beginners in streaming need.
Layout
This is the kind of thing that fits as a “frame” under your activity windows. What do you see in the screenshot below?
- Chat
- Browser
- Streamer’s webcam
- Purpose of collecting donations
- Info
All that’s around is a layout. If you don’t set up the layout, there’s a black background in the background, that’s not good.
Content
In the format of an online presentation you have a lot of opportunities that were not available offline.
This isn’t what you can do with your laptop, it’s what you need! Your comfortable workplace, you sit in a familiar environment. So, don’t limit yourself to the presentation! Bravely switch windows to demos, useful articles, and so on. This will diversify your content and make your presentation interactive.
Conclusion
Being a speaker is not easy, only recently you asked to raise your hand, and now you should learn the sphere of streaming!
Watch Twitch (if you haven’t), learn from streamers how to interact with the audience. Now is the time when you can come up with new chips and set the fashion for online performances.
