Casey Neistat and Matt Hackett on Live Video's Struggle for Interestingness

TL;DR

Casey Neistat and Matt Hackett discuss the "struggle for interestingness" as the core challenge for live video platforms, using Snapchat lenses and video games as successful counterexamples that provide a box or constraint. Their product Beam failed by being too open; its pivot to Panels limits scope to opinions on specific news stories to force interestingness.

Key insights

• Live video platforms have not truly succeeded because they fail to address the struggle for interestingness; Snapchat lenses solved it by adding fun for both creator and viewer, and video games succee
• Watching people's raw lives gets boring quickly; constraint (e.g., a specific news question) makes content interesting by giving the creator a narrative to latch onto.
• Building a product and a media company together requires a symbiotic relationship, not just using tech to distribute media; Beam's integration of crowdsourced panelists into content is still boring in