New Directory Makes Live Video Easier To Find; Playing It, Not So Easy

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New Directory Makes Live Video Easier To Find; Playing It, Not So Easy

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The folks at Clicker.com are rightfully psyched about their new live video directory, which makes finding legit live video a cinch. It’s not their fault that I instantly saw it as a way to determine just how much those of us with iPhones and iPads might be missing because Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs put Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) in time out. (Yes, I know some of you are convinced Adobe put itself there but Apple made the decision not to allow workarounds.) Flash, whether you like it or loath it, is the primary language of live streaming video. When I asked what percent of the live video being charted through Clicker.com was Flash, the answer was “most, if not all.”

Clicker has done an excellent job of optimizing for iPad and CEO Jim Lanzone tells me they’re working on an iPad app. So far, so good. I used the live guide to see what was streaming Tuesday afternoon. Bloomberg: great on the PC; no go on the iPad. CNN: great on PC, no go on iPad. TNT Tuesday night when I should have been able to see a live NBA show? No dice on the iPad. Just a message about the distributor not making it available for online viewing, when it should say Apple has opted out of streaming live videos in this format. No breaking news if, say, I’d been near Times Square Saturday night or flooded out in Nashville, although MLB.TV manages to deliver live games on the iPad. It doesn’t make Clicker Live any less useful but it does make the iPad and the iPhone less valuable - and leaves me hoping Apple will approve the Skyfire browser, which should render Flash viewable by transcoding it to HTML5, asap. It’s already out for Android.