Huffington Post Announces Web-Exclusive Content Agreement with Ustream for Live Citizen Journalism Footage of Raw Breaking News Content

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ustream Inc., the leader in live, interactive, streaming video, today announced an exclusive agreement with Huffington Post that grants the media outlet access to live-streaming videos from Ustream’s citizen journalists to embed on its breaking news pages. As citizen journalism continues to rise, Ustream has become the popular choice to stream live breaking news reporting. Now by partnering with Huffington Post, Ustream’s live on-the-street content will reach the media outlet’s almost 37 million monthly readers and viewers to provide a diverse perspective of late breaking events around the world.

“Most Content Ingested by An Online Video Service.”

At 3:30 p.m. (EST) sharp, be part of the groundbreaking exclusive live press announcement event with Editor-in-Chief of Huffington Post Arianna Huffington and CEO of Ustream Brad Hunstable by watching and providing commentary through Ustream’s exclusive social stream at Ustream.tv/huffingtonpost. Additionally, after the live-announcement, Ustream’s up-and-coming citizen journalist Luke "We Are Change" Rudkowski will give his perspective on why being a citizen journalist is important for today’s society especially with this generations’ greater access to mobile devices worldwide.

"We launched Off The Bus in 2007 to go beyond the one-dimensional horse-race aspect of election coverage and actually respond to the widespread dissatisfaction about the way campaigns are covered," said Arianna Huffington, president and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group. "So I'm delighted that we are partnering with Ustream for Off The Bus 2012, and renewing our commitment to holding politicians accountable and telling the stories that need to be told by tapping into a wide range of voices and perspectives."

In the last three years, Ustream has seen an almost 50 percent increase in use of mobile devices as the main source of viewing content and 1 out of 8 broadcasts are live from mobile devices. With Huffington Post’s exclusive partnership with Ustream – its readers will now have access to on-the-spot footage of historical events such as:

In addition to the partnership, Huffington Post and Ustream are giving a call out for nominations to anyone who thinks they or someone they know has what it takes to be a citizen journalist for this year’s “Off the Bus Cover the Conventions Contest.” Winners selected from the nomination pool will have all their lodging and expenses paid as they report from on the scene of this year’s political conventions in Charlotte or Tampa. Additionally, Ustream will be offering exclusive training and support to the winners to enhance their skills to become an All-Star Ustream citizen journalist. To be considered, send a video (less than two minutes) with reasons why you or someone you nominated should cover the convention, then email it to offthebus@huffingtonpost.com.

"Citizen journalism is increasingly democratizing the Internet with live Ustream news events playing an important role,” said Brad Hunstable, CEO and co-founder of Ustream. “Our partnership with Huffington Post will further push forward this trend and our mission to enable anyone, anywhere to share their stories. By combining Huffington Post’s world-class news reporting with Ustream’s live video citizen journalism, viewers everywhere will now have a raw and unedited perspective of diverse voices on the world’s most important events.”

Over the last three years, Ustream’s development team has designed and created the Ustream mobile app for the iPhone, iPad and Android devices making the process of streaming live broadcasts and viewing this content as easy as a touch of a button.

Download the Ustream app and be an Off the Bus Citizen Journalist today! Sign-up at Ustream.tv/huffingtonpost.

About The Huffington Post

The Huffington Post is a Pulitzer Prize-winning source of breaking news, features, and entertainment, as well as a highly engaged community for opinion and conversation. The Huffington Post has 36.9 million monthly unique visitors (comScore April, 2012) posting over 6.5 million comments each month. The site has over 30,000 bloggers -- from politicians, students and celebrities to academics, parents and policy experts -- who contribute in real-time on the subjects they are most passionate about. The Huffington Post has editions in the UK, Canada, Quebec, France, and Spain, with L’Huffington Post Italia scheduled to launch this year.

About Ustream

Ustream Inc. is the leader in live and interactive video streaming. The interactive platform connects broadcasters and viewers of unlimited size through innovative technology including co-hosting video features, IRC chat, Facebook, and Twitter. Ustream's free and premium solutions allow any broadcaster to create their own customizable channel with robust social and notification features to enhance visibility and virility across multiple platforms. In addition to activating the embeddable features on external websites, users are able to broadcast and view content while interacting in real-time directly from mobile phone devices, tablets, streaming players, smart TVs, and more. The company attracts millions of users ranging from music artists, celebrities, politicians, athletes, corporate executives, animal enthusiasts and gamers, all which have contributed to Ustream's Guinness World Record for the “Most Content Ingested by An Online Video Service.” For more information, visit www.ustream.com and follow Ustream’s socials: Twitter (@Ustream); Facebook (facebook.com/Ustream).