CreativeLive Launches 24/7 Educational Video Channels
Want to learn some new photography skills after dinner? Or maybe you're outside the U.S. and want to brush up on some web design when its 2 a.m. on the West Coast.
CreativeLive aims to make that easier with its launch today of a 24/7 digital education network across five free, always-on channels of original instructional content. The company's video classes are dedicated to practical skills and life-long learning for creative professionals, with channels dedicated to Art & Design, Business & Money, Maker & Craft, Music & Audio, and Photo & Video.
As the name indicates, CreativeLive's classes are all broadcast and recorded live from the company's San Francisco and Seattle studios. "The real-time nature makes it very exiting," says CEO Mika Salmi. "We get these experts instructors on to teach, so it's an efficient way to get them to share a lot of knowledge quickly."
Each channel will feature these live classes alongside rebroadcasts of previous live programs. "Something will always be on, like a broadcast network," Salmi says. "Not only will there be multiple choices to tune in now, but in multiple timezones there will be something live and pre-recorded, 24 hours a day."
To date CreativeLive has attracted more than 2 million students from 200 counties. Salmi notes that "For some of our channels there seems to be the demand to have more late-night programming. We want to see the behavior of our audience, and see if there are spikes in certain countries. Then we may tweak our broadcast schedule."
“Our goal is to give away as much free education as possible,” says Chase Jarvis, CreativeLive Co-founder. “We’ve experimented with programming around the clock, and we can literally observe students tuning in as the sun is coming up wherever they are. Around the world, there are tens of millions of passionate potential students with no local access to creative education. It’s a huge market and a great opportunity to help make the world a more creative place.”
For each live class there is real-time interaction between instructors and students using a chatroom and twitter. Instructors use Facebook groups to view student work and give critiques on projects like photos and videos. "We find it's more compelling from an educational context, responding to students' needs in real-time," Salmi said.
CreativeLive operates on a freemium model where all live classes and programs are free, and students who want to own and rewatch classes on-demand can purchase recordings of the live broadcasts.
The company has been in operation for three and a half years, amassing a catalog of over 500 video courses which each last 2 to 3 days. Each month CreativeLive creates and broadcasts 25 new live courses, and this fall it raised $21.5 million of capital funding.
Class offerings and all five live channels are available at CreativeLive.com
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CreativeLive is a live streaming network for creative types -- and anyone else who wants to learn new skills.
19 Mar 2014