Preface
Here’s a look at some recent ways I’ve tried to make money online.
This blog post focuses on TikTok live streaming.
The content I’ve tried so far:
- Meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner). Live streams are done during normal mealtimes, no need to be pretentious, just show your face.
- Web-based interactive live streaming (TTS voice welcome and printer likes to display avatars and ratings), with no human involved.
- Fish tank live streaming rewards. Give gifts and feed the fish, with no human involved.
So far, I haven’t made even $0.01. In fact, I was even banned from TikTok for a week because of these live streams.
I’ll explain the details separately.
Web unmanned live broadcast
I created a webpage for interactive live streaming.
A printer is displayed on the webpage, printing something like an invoice.
The printed page shows the interaction of entering the livestream, liking, and sending gifts.
If someone enters the livestream, it prints “TTS Welcome xxx to the livestream.”
If someone likes, it prints “Thank you xxx for liking.”
If someone sends a gift, it prints the user’s avatar and displays the avatar rating.
However, because some user avatars are intended for adults, they were displayed in the livestream without being verified by the adult content API.
This resulted in a one-week ban on the livestream.
If we use the API to detect adult content in images and remove sensitive content, we can theoretically continue the livestream without anyone else.
This is primarily an interactive livestream. Since it uses web monitoring, it can be unattended.
Reality interactive live broadcast
Web content is, after all, virtual. Without real people interacting and guiding the livestream, it won’t last long.
So, the same gameplay can involve real-world physical interactions.
If someone enters the livestream, use TTS to welcome xxx to the room.
If someone likes a comment, use TTS and flash the LED strip to express gratitude.
If someone gives a gift, immediately feed the fish tank. A few grains of food isn’t necessary; they don’t need to be excessive. This not only feeds the fish, attracting them to swim and creating interaction, but also ensures they have enough food, neither too much nor too little.
Similarly, the fish tank can be used to feed a kitten.
The difference is that the web uses MQTT WebSockets to listen to the livestream data and generate webpage interactions.
The fish tank represents the real world. This blog uses ESP32, relay sensors, and MQTT notifications to control the LED strip and interact with the fish feeder.
Live food broadcast
Live streaming is all about real-time interaction.
The core essence of live streaming is visual content like beautiful women dancing.
But as a man, dancing isn’t very suitable for me. If I wanted to live stream at this time, I couldn’t just focus on myself; men don’t have the same visual appeal.
Food is inherently appealing, and whether it’s long YouTube videos or TikTok live streams, food content attracts a lot of traffic.
Daily breakfast, lunch, and dinner are simply part of life and a cost of living; they don’t require any additional investment.
So I chose food and eating shows.
But the data was terrible. I live streamed for two days and did about five eating shows. Basically, only one person came in and left after 30 minutes of each live stream. There was almost no one watching.
Tips
In summary, I experimented with interactive live streaming and food live streaming.
Unmanned live streaming was blocked for a week because it didn’t control sensitive user profile information. Regarding food live streaming, TikTok didn’t give me any traffic, probably because I was male (I’d tested a live stream of a beautiful woman dancing, and it instantly attracted a large number of users).
So far, developing interactive live streaming and food live streaming has taken a total of two weeks, with zero revenue.