Peter Griffin: Live 8 online was like being there

No matter how cynical you are about the attempts of millionaire rock stars to stamp out Africa's mountain of debt, you have to admit that last weekend's Live 8 concerts were a pretty amazing undertaking.

And as far as the internet was concerned, they signalled a first for the medium - decent web-streamed video that is available free and doesn't keep grinding to a halt.

I jumped on to the web throughout the event to catch some of the performances.

Sure, Michael Stipe singing the REM classic Man on the Moon was a couple of seconds out of sync with the video of him on stage at Hyde Park, but that was forgivable. We at least got through the song without any annoying stuttering.

I had a 256Kbps broadband connection and later used a Telecom mobile data card. The results were similar - for each a relatively smooth video feed with decent audio. The feeds are available online for the next six weeks, with the ability to listen to each artist and song in isolation. Not bad!

Consider the statistics: five million people logged on to AOL's website during the event. Those people accessed 175,000 video feeds from AOL's servers. I'm not a big fan of AOL. Its software products are intrusive. They always have to be the first to load on your machine; they're the biggest attention-grabbers. AIM, the instant messenger, hasn't a shade on Microsoft's Instant Messenger. And ICQ, the messaging client owned by AOL, is ugly and clunky to use. I wasn't expecting great things when I logged into aolmusic.com to pick up a Live 8 feed. However, I was pleasantly surprised.

MTV was hammered for its botched coverage of Live 8, which was peppered with inane veejay banter and ad breaks. They even cut away from Hyde Park during the guitar solo of Pink Floyd hit Comfortably Numb. Sacrilege! For once, the web was kicking live TV's butt!

Web-streaming has come a long way since that frustrating night in 2001 when I watched an internet feed of Neil Finn's star-studded show at St James in Auckland. It was broadcast via the internet but it froze in a technical meltdown.

Now, data compression technology and the prevalence of high-speed internet connections have made web-streamed video bearable to watch.

The most exciting thing about the Live 8 internet broadcast is that it signals a shift in the business model for covering major events on the internet.

AOL is trying to move away from the locked-down subscriber model on its website to an open model supported by website advertising. None of us want to shell out to watch internet video, but we'll happily glance at some ads for hairspray or mobile phones hovering in the margins. Let's hope more major events get the Live 8 treatment online.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY