The live video service TinyChat is best known for its ability to sync together up to 16 broadcasters in the same room, but it has also been adding new services and functionality to its line-up. Recently, it launched a dead-simple video chat service reminiscent of Skype.
Now TinyChat's decided to use its live video technology to directly compete with live video powerhouses Ustream and Justin.tv. The company has just launched TinyChat.tv, a service for making "your own live web show."
It has all of the basic necessities to start a live video T.V. show: customization options, scheduling, subscriptions, and promotion via Facebook or Twitter. Since it's TinyChat, you can have multiple simultaneous video broadcasters in your show, the service's big advantage. It also has live chat and commenting. If you want to start a simple live show, TinyChat.tv is definitely a usable option.
We'll be honest though: it's nowhere near ready to compete with Justin.tv or Ustream. Getting a live Chat Room stream up and running is a long-winded process, as opposed to the main TinyChat service, which is as simple as typing random characters after "Tinychat.com." It took 6-7 screens of settings and customization before we could get broadcasting, which was annoying.
Competing against Ustream and Justin.tv isn't as simple as putting up a live video TV service. Both of them has perfected some powerful technology and attracted thousands of loyal users and broadcasters. From our tests, we doubt TinyChat.tv could handle the load that these other services endure — for example, there were over 500,000+ simultaneous viewers for a recent Carrie Underwood concert on Ustream.
In summary, TinyChat.tv is good, useful, and has features that other live video services don't have. It's an impressive display of their API (which is free), but there's more to live video broadcasting than just the technology you use. It's early though, so we expect the service to grow and improve as time goes on. If you try it out for yourself, let us know what you think of TinyChat.tv in the comments.
Disclosure: Mashable has partnered with TinyChat to create The Mashable Lounge, our live Twitter chatroom.