Tokyo Cam

Manga illustrator and character designer for Mirai-chan Azami Yuko done a broadcast the other day of her working on a new illustration over at her Ustream Channel. I watched and thought it was quite interesting.

I then remembered that Ustream released an application making it possible to do live broadcasts from the iPhone - I tried out the app the following day with a test broadcast showing the viewers around the office. The test went well and was warmly received.

The iPhone together with this app now means that I can bring you more of life in Tokyo not only through photos but through live video too. Unlike videos I upload to my YouTube account, I don't need to record and encode anything before uploading it - all I do is fire up the Ustream app and go live.
So how do folks know that I'm broadcasting? Well none of these broadcasts are scheduled. What happens when I hit the Go Live button is that my broadcast URL is tweeted to my Twitter account. If you are interested in watching the broadcasts of Tokyo as it happens then follow me on Twitter.
If you have not discovered the benefits of Twitter yet then you may want to read the Tweetup article.

As for the tweet that automatically goes out - its canned text by Ustream which sounds so cheesy - something like "Hey come and see my broadcast!"

Today we are going to have a look at the behind-the-scenes on yesterdays broadcast which I done during my lunch break. Will probably be broadcasting this Thursday where I will take you to Kawasaki - will be going to see Avatar at the Lazona IMAX. Wont be broadcasting from inside the cinema though ^^;

Folks who watched yesterday's broadcast will be familiar with all these photos - if you was one of the viewers then let us know!

An embed below with some of yesterdays broadcast. Is that what the broadcast looked like or was it smoother?
I normally try to keep up with your comments as I walk and reply when I catch questions or requests.

At Togoshi Ginza. T'was a gorgeous sunny day. Another bit from yesterdays broadcast below.

Having a look at the prices of apartments.

And this is what it looked like from my view. After broadcasting for over 30 mins, the application crashed.

Then when I found some food to eat, I started to broadcast again. Here we take a look at how our local Coco Ichibanya has a Moe mascot - not sure if this is the only one that does as I've never seen her at any other Coco's.

And this is what I see on my end. I can read all your comments for the first few mins then as more viewers start to join in on the conversation, the comment list jumps to the first comment. I try to scroll down to see the new comments but the list keeps resetting. Really hope that Ustream fix this bug.

Tis really fun being able to broadcast and communicate with the viewers at the same time.

I didn't think viewers wanted to watch me eat but when I used the Poll function, it turns out that about 90% did want to watch! ^^;

Never in my life have had 80 people watch me eat ^^;

I was giggling too much and couldn't take it no more so ended the broadcast while eating ^^;

Then its back to the office - we stop to talk about pizza delivery and restaurants in Japan.

By now we had quite a few viewers - great numbers considering that it was only a single tweet that started to being in the punters. Thanks for retweeting if you did.
Thought I'd take the viewers for a special view of Tokyo.

I usually go up to this spot for inspiration. Tis a really nice view up here on a sunny day and even more so by night.

Was very cold n windy up here!

Would love to attach a web cam here for you ^^;

And a view of the other side towards Yokohama.

The iPhone Ustream app has a list of all previous broadcasts which are also saved on my Ustream account.

And here are some of the settings. From this screen, you can set it to tweet your broadcast when you start.

At the moment I'm broadcasting all my streams into the Live Tokyo channel.

When I'm not online, you can view my previously recorded videos on this page under the Archived Videos tab.

At the Shotengai.

Cute girlies want you to work with them at Yoshinoya.

Those Dollfie sized rucksacks.

Was thinking of having Tenpura for lunch.

We have a load of chemists around here.

Number of views start to increase just as I was about to turn back for the tenpura ^^;

Didnt want to leave folks in the lurch so continued walking.

No I was not at Anime Festa in Malaysia ^^

Really hope they fix the comment bug with this app soon.

Heading back to the office.

Was also streaming from Ginza outside the Abercrombie & Fitch store.

Dont forget to keep an eye on my Twitter if you are interested in watching these broadcasts and if you enjoy them then please retweet and let others know!

One thing about retweeting - if you reply with your tweet starting with "@dannychoo" then only people who follow you and me will see the tweet. If you want all your followers to see that tweet then start your tweet with a "." or "RT"

We will soon be implementing Growl notifications into the site so that you can see my tweets anytime you are on dannychoo.com.

The Tokyo Live Bloggers will work together to bring you more of Tokyo live as it happens not only through photos but now video too - japannow.fm launches soon...