VyRT

VyRT
Type Private
Founded Los Angeles, California, U.S.
2011 (2011)
Area served Worldwide
Founder(s) Jared Leto
Key people Yasir Hossain (CTO)
Industry Internet
Services Streaming media, digital distribution, online shopping
Website vyrt.com
Alexa rank Increase 332,911 (July 2015)[1]

VyRT is an American provider of on-demand Internet streaming media available to viewers worldwide. The company was established in late 2011 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. VyRT was founded by entertainer Jared Leto as a website for hosting online events, but soon diversified into featuring digital distribution and online shopping. It also includes social networking.

By 2015, VyRT was receiving 3.5 million requests per minute and had surpassed 5,000 subscribers. Many of its live events became worldwide trending topics.[2]

History

VyRT was established in late 2011 as a startup company by entertainer Jared Leto. His aim was to let musicians create live experiences and broadcast them on the Internet, with the ability to share their work without having to rely on the prevailing sponsor-based model.[3] Its idea came from some frustrating experiences Leto faced with American rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars in streaming their own live events.[4]

On December 7, 2011, VyRT streamed the Tribus Centum Numerarae, the 300th show of the Into the Wild Tour by Thirty Seconds to Mars, which garnered the band the Guinness World Record for most live shows during a single album cycle.[5] The show marked the launch of the online platform VyRT.[6] At the 2012 O Music Awards in June, it was awarded Best Online Concert Experience.[7]

After the first streamed events, VyRT transitioned to a new site, expanding to digital distribution and online shopping, selling video downloads/streaming, MP3 downloads/streaming, and e-books. It also began to feature social networking.[8] The team rebuilt the website in Ruby on Rails and expanded its capacity on Heroku.[2] An official store featuring merchandise, DVDs, books, and apparel was also launched.[9] The artists featured on VyRT included Gerard Way, Linkin Park, Greek Fire, The Janoskians, Ryan Cabrera, and Brendan Brazier. Later, it began to stream films, beginning on August 31, 2013 with special screenings of the documentary film Artifact (2012), followed by the psychological horror film The Shining (1980) on February 9, 2014.[10][11]

In August 2014, it was announced that VyRT would exclusively broadcast worldwide the performance from the Carnivores Tour by Linkin Park and Thirty Seconds to Mars, scheduled on September 15 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.[12] Before Thirty Seconds to Mars took to the stage, the VyRT platform was hacked and was a victim of a piracy. Jared Leto was forced to delay the performance by Thirty Seconds to Mars by an hour to resolve the issue. The audience eventually lost approximately three minutes of actual stage time, but the set list was shortened.[13] The event included "real-time social community engagement from audiences worldwide".[14]

In November 2014, the documentary series Into the Wild premiered on VyRT.[15] The series was produced by Jared Leto and Emma Ludbrook through the production company Sisyphus Corporation.[16]

Services

The VyRT website features a main page, Live, and Vault, as well as a series of personal pages. The Live sections provide live streaming events as well as social networking. Users log in during the broadcast and can chat with others via live feed. The interaction window allows users to quote, invite, reply, or find other users' profiles. Artists can also interact with users on the live feed.[2] The Vault sections consist of all available events for purchase, including streaming and downloads.[17]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Vyrt.com". Alexa Internet. Retrieved July 7, 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 "Heroku Customer Success: VyRT". Heroku. Salesforce.com. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  3. ↑ Safian, Robert (October 14, 2014). "'I Like To Employ The Power Of No': Jared Leto". Fast Company. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  4. ↑ Fallon, Nicole (December 17, 2013). "Jared Leto Launches Live Streaming Service VyRT". Business News Daily. TechMediaNetwork. Retrieved April 5, 2014.
  5. ↑ Montgomery, James (October 17, 2011). "30 Seconds To Mars Go For Guinness World Record". MTV. Viacom Media Networks. Retrieved March 3, 2012.
  6. ↑ Beard, Lanford (December 7, 2011). "Jared Leto on Thirty Seconds to Mars' record-breaking tour: 'It's been the journey of a lifetime'". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
  7. ↑ Fletcher, Jennifer (June 29, 2012). "2012 MTV O Music Award Winners". MTV Australia. Viacom Media Networks. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
  8. ↑ May, Alex (November 8, 2012). "VyRT Connects Rock Band To Passionate Fans". Hypebot.com. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  9. ↑ "VyRTstore". VyRT. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  10. ↑ "Artifact is Coming!". Thirty Seconds to Mars. July 29, 2013. Retrieved January 13, 2014.
  11. ↑ "Movie Night". VyRT. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  12. ↑ "VyRT Presents: Carnivores Tour". Thirty Seconds to Mars. August 20, 2014. Retrieved October 22, 2014.
  13. ↑ Stonebridge, Renna (September 16, 2014). "Pissed off Jared Leto to Shut Down 'VyRT'?". Stonebridge Daily. Retrieved October 22, 2014.
  14. ↑ Walker, Charles (August 20, 2014). "Carnivores Tour to stream live from Hollywood Bowl on VyRT". Irocke. Retrieved October 22, 2014.
  15. ↑ Montgomery, James (November 11, 2014). "Jared Leto Readies 'Unofficial Sequel' to Thirty Seconds to Mars' 'Artifact'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved December 16, 2014.
  16. ↑ Sharp, Tyler (November 3, 2014). "Thirty Seconds To Mars announce documentary series, 'Into The Wild'". Alternative Press. Retrieved December 18, 2014.
  17. ↑ Holland, Maggie (December 31, 2012). "Jared Leto: The unsung hero of cloud computing?". Cloud Pro. Dennis Publishing. Retrieved June 4, 2015.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, December 15, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.