The Republican National Convention has brokered a deal with UStream.TV to serve as its "Official Live Video Streaming Provider." Appropriately, the announcement was made live via streaming video at www.GOPConvention2008.com.

Readers of TechRepublican will recall our conversation with UStream founder Brad Hunstable two weeks ago where he teased that a "major announcement" was in the queue. This is that announcement. And, of note, Hunstable said that the "deal would not be replicated with the Democratic Party." Sweet.

Of the partnership, the GOP Convention President and CEO, Maria Cino, said in a prepared statement, “Partnering with Ustream.TV sends a clear message that the Republican Party wants the Internet generation and all people – from Party loyalists to casual observers – to be part of the 2008 Republican National Convention. Anyone with computer and Internet access will be guaranteed a front-row seat to history through www.GOPConvention2008.com, as we formally nominate the next President and Vice President of the United States.”

From the release on the partnership:

Ustream.TV allows anyone with a camera, computer, and Internet connection to broadcast live video to a global audience. Ustream.TV was founded by two U.S. military veterans and a technologist who strived to create a way for people of all ages around the globe to connect with each other through the power of live, online video broadcasts.

In addition to live gavel-to-gavel coverage of the convention, the Ustream.TV broadcasting platform will be used to proactively engage bloggers and traditional media outlets unable to travel to Minneapolis-Saint Paul for the event. As part of the pioneering effort, convention and other Republican officials will be scheduled to participate in live video web chats and other online interviews, using Ustream.TV’s platform, leading up to and during the Republican National Convention.

Fellow bloggers, if you're interested in obtaining media credentials, you'll find all of the information you need here.

At today's bloggers briefing at Heritage we heard how the Bush Administration's Department of Justice is siding with the District of Columbia as its 1976 gun ban law is challenged in the Supreme Court. We also got the scoop on Ustream.tv, a new web service that lets anyone quickly and easily broadcast streaming video online.

The DC Gun Ban
Alan Gura, the lawyer who is arguing the pro-Second Amendment side in the DC gun rights case currently before the Supreme Court and John Lott, author and scholar at the University of Maryland, joined us by phone to update us on what's up with the Justice Department filing a brief that effectively supports the District’s gun ban.

Here’s an except from Lott’s recent article in NRO that explains how the case is shaping up:

The Department of Justice argument can be boiled down pretty easily. Its lawyers claim that since the government bans machine guns, it should also be able to ban handguns. After all, they reason, people can still own rifles and shotguns for protection, even if they have to be stored locked up. The Justice Department even seems to accept that trigger locks are not really that much of a burden, and that the locks “can properly be interpreted” as not interfering with using guns for self-protection. Yet, even if gun locks do interfere with self-defense, DOJ believes the regulations should be allowed, as long as the District of Columbia government thinks it has a good reason.

Factually, there are many mistakes in the DOJ’s reasoning: As soon as a rifle or shotgun is unlocked, it becomes illegal in D.C., and there has never been a federal ban on machine guns. But these are relatively minor points. Nor does it really matter that the only academic research on the impact of trigger locks on crime finds that states that require guns be locked up and unloaded face a five-percent increase in murder and a 12 percent increase in rape. Criminals are more likely to attack people in their homes, and those attacks are more likely to be successful. Since the potential of armed victims deters criminals, storing a gun locked and unloaded actually encourages crime.

When asked to handicap the Court’s likely decision, Gura said:

I think we’ll win, we’re writing the brief right now, there’s a good chance that they’ll go along with us.

Ustream.tv
Brad Hunstable, one of Ustream's founders, walked us through the service and talked about the opportunities for political candidates and non-profits to get up and running with Ustream. David's already blogged about Ustream today, but here's more for ya.

While the service is free, Brad talked about their plan to sell advertising, and add a Pay-Per-View feature.

The Pay-Per-View functionality can be used for fundraisers, for example: to see the Chuck Norris and Mike Huckabee BBQ, you have to contribute to the campaign.

While there's advertising on the homepage, there's currently none on the interior pages, or embedded in the videos. Brad stated that he wasn't keen on using pre-roll or post-roll ads and that he'd like to go with in-video product mentions, where the video host would talk up an advertisers product.

Rob Bluey asked if Ustream had thought of streaming Congressional committee hearings.

Lots of committee meetings take place that are never recorded, and Liberal members are getting away with saying and doing nutty things in the hearings, and there's no sunlight in the process.

Brad said he'd look into it, noting:

The Mainstream Media can’t cover everything, and we’re trying to fill that gap.

Blogs for Life 2008
Next Tuesday the Family Research Council is hosting Blogs for Life and our weekly bloggers briefing at their DC headquarters. They've got a great line-up of speakers including Star Parker.

I'll be there live-blogging it for you loyal techRepublican readers. Should be fun.

Joe Mansour will blog about UStream in his weekly round-up of the conservatives bloggers briefing but I want to weigh in.

Brad Hunstable is the founder of UStream.tv provides a platform for anyone with a webcam or video camera to stream/broadcast live video through the Internet.

The premise: "People want to broadcast their message to dozens, hundreds, and thousands of people at once. This technology has not been available for FREE for consumers until now. We monetize traffic with sponsoring and advertising on the site."

Bits and pieces dashed throughout the conversation from Brad which caught my ear:
* UStream went public in March 2007 and since then has enjoyed good growth.
* Work with both sides of the political aisle. Of note, streamed the Barack/Oprah joint-appearance and Mitt Romney's speech on mormonism.
* James Kotecki of the Politico streamed via UStream from the Iowa Caucus.
* Long Tail streams: High school football games, family gatherings, church services, and individual streams.
* Big announcement coming in two weeks which involves the Republican Party. Would not tell us more about this deal. I'll dig in and try and scoop it. (Note: Brad said he will not be replicating this deal with the Democratic Party.)
* Looking to add more debate-esque features where two streams run simultaneously.
* Similar to Stickam, but with a much more conservative brand (less risque content, e.g., no nudity and nothing illegal permitted).

MY THOUGHTS
I like UStream. You and I should have a way to broadcast our message and this platform provides that at a cost that fits the budget.

I do have one concern/issue with UStream and that's the problem of jumpy/buffering video. In other words, when I login from a high-speed connection, the video always seems spotty. It's kind of like listening to your favorite record and hearing it skip beat after beat.

It's frustrating. But as Brad noted in our discussion, it might not be the *fault* of UStream.

In fact, I asked Brad about his server capacity - and how they plan to address this issue - and he said:

"We have scaled robustly, focused on it early on. There are inherent challenges - Internet connections from the users to UStream and then from UStream back to a user. Romney's case had the volume too high (gain) which distorted the audio and they didn't have the proper upload bandwidth speed for a proper connection. We're there on our end and we're working to help make the system more "dummy-proof" for broadcasting users."

I've got a number of speaking opportunities coming up in the near future so I'm going to give it a shot. Stay tuned.

As Patrick wrote yesterday, Mitt Romney is broadcasting his "Faith in America" speech via UStream.tv. Smart move. No silly downloads. No reason to turn on the TV.

Via Mitt's UStream Channel, you can participate in an online chat while watching the speech.

We'll embed the stream in this space shortly. Pardon the technical difficulties:

Tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. EST, Mitt Romney's "Faith in America" speech will be webcast live using UStream.TV , a YouTube-like site for live video. The speech will play live on MittRomney.com, Romney's profile page on UStream, and just like a YouTube video, it's a Flash widget that's embeddable directly on your blog. Bloggers wanting to create a sticky experience for their users can embed the player in a post starting at 10:30 a.m. and invite readers to give their play-by-play reactions in a comment thread.

Obligatory full disclosure: I am an advisor to UStream, and am really pumped by the possibilities of live, free online video for politics. Just like online video pre-YouTube, live web streaming was "broken" pre-2007. Doing live video on the Internet was out of reach for all but the most the elite clientele. It cost thousands of dollars to stream a single event, rent the sat truck, hire the crew, etc. Now, it can be as a simple as a Webcam + EVDO card -- or any combination of a streaming-enabled camera and Internet connection.

In another innovative use of the medium by a conservative, Michelle Malkin has already used the service to hold live, interactive conversations with HotAir readers. (Each UStream video features a chat room where users can pose questions and talk with each other.) Your speech, conference, seminar or other live event can now be sent out live over the Internet -- and you don't have to be a Presidential candidate either.

Kudos to Mitt Romney's team for being the first Republican campaign to jump in.