International music star Shakira is taking a new approach to releasing her latest music video: she’s doing it through a live stream on Ustream, which will be emedded on her Facebook Page. According to Sony, this is the first time an artist has used the platform to debut a music video (Updated: Sony is wrong. Chamillionaire did it first, see below). Shakira (and her managers) are keen on the idea because it allows her and her fans to interact with each other in real time — something that’s not practical on TV, where these videos have been making their debuts for decades. The stream will start here on Monday at noon, PT.
The live video/Facebook combo is quickly gaining steam for artists looking to connect with their fans — we’ve recently seen the Foo Fighters stream a live concert using LiveStream, and earlier this week Jason Mraz held a couple live chat session with fans as well. Other sites that have also recently streamed live concerts include MySpace, YouTube, and Hulu.
Update: Looks like Sony was wrong. As our commenters point out, Chamillionaire was the first to use Ustream for the debut of his music video, Good Morning (which you can watch here). As we saw at TechCrunch50 he’s definitely ahead of the curve with regard to web services, so it’s no surprise that he was first.
