It's week 966!
This week Boom Supersonic did their first flight test of their supersonic aircraft actually breaking the sound barrier, testing up to Mach 1.1. I don’t have any opinion on supersonic aircraft (progress is good? carbon impacts probably bad? I don’t know anything really here besides fast planes are cool). But I was struck at how they live-streamed the test!
This is a pretty established framework now, and you can see it follows the template we’ve seen in big launch livestreams from SpaceX, Blue Origin, etc. It’s a production! Multiple broadcast quality cameras, some of which are on other aircraft. A live producer or editing team that’s switching between cameras. On-screen graphics giving you stats and details. And on-air announcer and commenters, talking us through it, bravely winging the details and filling in airtime when things don’t go according to plan.
For my money: I love this. I love a tech company solving difficult engineering problems and doing their own media work! I love doing this in public, and inviting people to watch and learn.
What I wondered was: could web-oriented companies do this? Could Brand New Box? We have big launches. We move a lot of data around, and sometimes in make-or-break situations. Sure, if something goes wrong nothing will literally explode. (Or as they call it in aerospace, a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly). But it can feel dramatic.
But just imagine: there’s a big merch drop for one of the artists on our e-commerce platform. Tens of thousands of shoppers, all fighting to get those limited edition vinyl. Jace and Will at their battle stations, monitoring how the system dynamically spins up servers to meet the demand! Customers getting their orders in! Our clients' revenue spiking up and to the right!
Or: a large field team out assessing a building for ADA compliance? Moving through a complicated space, spotting barriers and recording them, while an office-based QA team checks their work, and a team of architects plans and costs out the fixes? On screen graphics with not just the numeric representation of their findings, but what... dollars saved? Population that will have free access?
I love this idea, and definitely going to be thinking more about it. What's our version of a rocket launch - and how do we share it?