Ustream Turns To Businesses For Success In 2015, The 'Year Of Video'

In many ways, the Internet in 2014 may be defined by streaming video. Apple announced the iPhone 6 via live stream, and the world watched as the European Space Agency provided a live stream of its attempt to place a lander on a comet in November. That trend looks to continue this year, and in an interview with International Business Times, Ustream CEO and co-founder Brad Hunstable called 2015 the "year of video."

Ustream was the official partner for the New Year's Eve 2015 live stream from Times Square. The six-hour broadcast was viewed around the world and was a fitting way to end a year that featured so many important moments that were streamed online. "I think 2015 will be the year of video, so it's sort of fitting that we bring this into the new year with this really interactive, really HD, high-quality New Year's Eve presentation," Hunstable said.

While consumers get all the attention, Hunstable said businesses have become a huge part of Ustream's success. Businesses are looking for ways to share information or new products and are opting to use streaming video for external and internal purposes. With all the talk of tech companies going public, Ustream has other ideas for 2015. "The business model for Ustream has been traditionally advertising, but what’s interesting is over the past few years we’ve really doubled down our efforts to become a SAAS [Software-as-a-service] company. We’ll license and sell our technology to media companies and enterprises that need really powerful and highly scalable video solutions," Hunstable said.

With privacy and data hacks dominating the news cycle, Ustream hopes to provide a sense of security with the launch of Ustream Align on Jan. 12. Ustream Align will include security features such as password-protected streams and business-oriented tools such as video hosting and search engines. "Something like a product launch to a media event where they do a concert with Lady Gaga, like Verizon did [in 2014], and internal to the organization such as meetings and training -- that’s the most rapidly growing part of our business on the enterprise side," Hunstable said.

HBO Go will be available without a cable subscription in 2015 while Dish Network announced Sling TV, which offers a package of channels -- including ESPN and CNN -- for $20 a month at CES 2015. And there's always Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu Plus adding to the streaming video traffic. Even networks such as CBS and NBC offer their own live streaming options. "It’s been a fantastic year for video in general. We’ve seen everything from very high-profile consumer-facing events, whether that was citizen journalism and happening in Ukraine or in Russia, to major concerts we would do throughout the year or space events with NASA," Hunstable said.

"Video is increasingly taking over the Internet," Hunstable said. "I read an interesting stat the other day, Cisco is predicting, by 2018, that 85 percent of all Internet traffic will be video."