All eyes for bull riding fans are on Las Vegas this week, where the Professional Bull Riders Built Ford Tough Series World Finals kick off on October 26th. Making this extra exciting for us is the fact that the Professional Bull Riders just launched a brand new website last week with a range of new online video content that is powered by the Brightcove Video Cloud online video platform.

The Brightcove PLAY 2011 global customer conference is sold out, but that doesn't mean you have to miss out on the fun and excitement of the event. We are streaming all of the keynotes live from the Boston Seaport Hotel & World Trade Center!

If you're unable to make it out to Kendall Square in Cambridge, MA this evening for the Boston Brightcove User Group Meeting "New Enhancements in Transcoding," don't worry!

For all you Jim Cramer fans out there, make sure to check out the new "Cramer's Picks Live" video feature from Brightcove customer TheStreet.com. The show is running live on the Brightcove platform at 11:30 am ET today and showcases Cramer answering questions from Twitter, Facebook and other sources about the latest and greatest happenings on the stock market.

Presentation Focus: Brightcove goes Mobile!

Live Broadcast Link: (Presentations start at 7pm ET)

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid73672450001?bctid=73678119001


More information about the agenda:
http://www.meetup.com/Boston-Brightcove-Developer-Group/calendar/13170056/

The eruption of Eyjafjallajökull can shut down air traffic in Europe, but it can't shut down Brightcove and the global Drupal community.  Many US-based Brightcovers are stranded in the UK along with hundreds of Drupal fans (a.k.a. Drupalistas) across Europe who had planned to attend Drupalcon San Francisco. The following map shows just a few of the affected Drupal community members:

Tonight is London's BDG - Brightcove for Interactive Video.

Come back at 7pm GMT for the live stream (player below) - ask questions via Twitter!  #LBDG

Live Broadcast Link:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid73672450001?bctid=73678119001

For more info on tonight's event:
http://www.meetup.com/Boston-Brightcove-Developer-Group/calendar/12746366/

Brightcove supports delivering live video in a Brightcove player without any custom development or complex integration. Since the Brightcove live video integration is built on the same framework as on-demand video, you can take advantage of the rest of Brightcove's service capabilities, including full metadata, scheduling, bumpers, geo-restriction, Media APIs, custom live video players, and the ability to mix on-demand and live videos together in the same playlists. You can also deliver ads along with a live video stream.

Tonight at 8:00 pm, Canoe.ca and a host of other media organizations will broadcast a benefit show, “Together for Haiti,” to raise donations to help victims of the recent earthquake. The event will feature performances from dozens of artists who have united together to help the people of Haiti.

Today at 9:30 am ET, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's speech on Internet freedom will be streamed live at http://www.state.gov on the Brightcove platform. According to a CNN article yesterday, Clinton will "lay out the Administration's strategy for protecting freedfom in the networked age of the 21st Century." 

With the release of native live streaming support in Brightcove 4 the question is not if you should take up live streaming but when.

Live streaming offers a video initiative bags of possibilities but true Live Streaming can be costly.   We do work with many partners that can complete this value chain very seamlessly, or for simple projects there's the very easy to use and free Adobe Live Media Encoder that can connect any camera to the servers via a PC.

Tonight our technology partner Drupal will be hosting a Drupal for Marketing event here in London.  You can see details about it here: http://drupal4marketing2009.eventbrite.com/

A couple of Brightcovers are going over to participate and we thought it would be fun to follow in the footsteps of Manchester City FC and live broadcast part of the event.

You can view it in the player below and the feed should start around 6.30pm GMT - feel free to post it on your Facebook profile by clicking the FB Share link.

New Brightcove Alliance partner, Livestream, today announced the availability of their new API and a Brightcove player plug-in that they developed with it. At its simplest, the new plug-in allows joint Brightcove and Livestream customers to broadcast live web shows within their Brightcove players.