Opinion: Video sharing has never been more popular, and the bevy of choices can leave users wondering which service is best for their needs. Publish.com takes a close look at 12 sites vying for the video-sharing crown.
User-generated video sharing has never been hotter. In the last few months, a bevy of sites have launched to take advantage of the trend, which most observers say is a result of near-ubiquitous broadband access and the success of YouTube.
In fact, YouTube, which had about 6 million unique visitors in March, recently rocketed past established video sites AtomFilms and iFilm, apparently proving that video sharing is more popular than just video watching. (See the slide show, right, for traffic details1.)
But the business models are far from proven. After angering several networks over pirated material, YouTube has begun partnering with professional content providers. Another site, ClipShack, plans to charge for access. Meanwhile, sharing site Revver hopes to make money by inserting ads in videos.
Take a look at the services below and judge their prospects for yourself. They're all fun, they're all impressive and they're all vying for the video-sharing crown.
Veoh
Veoh is unique among video-sharing sites in that it tries to duplicate the television-watching experience, both through metaphor (categorizing content into "channels") and by quality (offering a downloadable, full-screen-capable video player). Because Veoh is a P2P network, the service offers a desktop application that helps you download videos and share video with other users. The Veoh desktop client is nicely designed, and, unlike competitor MetaCafe, it works on both Mac OS and Windows. Don't skip through the installation steps, though: The Veoh client tried to reserve 30 percent of my available disk space for downloaded videos.
Veoh also offers social networking features, and it allows you to view your friends, your friends' videos, your friends' favorites and so forth. Like MySpace, your Veoh account comes with one complimentary friend, this one named Wendy. (But unlike Tom of MySpace, Wendy has only about 300 friends.)
Veoh is currently in beta. The company says that fee-based viewing, in which video creators can charge viewers to watch their shows, will be part of the public release.
Despite Veoh's repetition of the familiar television metaphor, it remains to be seen if users will be willing to also download an application in order to share video. Competing services, such as YouTube, offer much of the same functionality without the extra downloading steps. Veoh has recently been criticized for copying the video libraries of other sharing sites.
MetaCafe
MetaCafe is another video-sharing site that makes use of a downloadable application, although this one is Windows-only. MetaCafe's organizing principle is community development, and videos are just one way—the site also offers game downloads - it tries to do that. The company has been around for several years. The competitive chart it publishes on its About Us page suggests its main competitors are iFilm, Heavy.com and AtomFilms. MetaCafe allows uploads in multiple formats but plays movies only in WMP. Downloaded movies arrive in their original format. Like Veoh and a range of other video-sharing sites, MetaCafe allows you to embed its movies in your blog or site.
MetaCafe is a popular service, but users haven't adopted it like YouTube. This may be because MetaCafe still adheres to old sharing paradigms: The most prominent sharing method is via e-mail, and the site seems to have only one RSS feed. The desktop application seems unnecessary, since MetaCafe doesn't distribute videos via P2P. Overall, though, the site is intuitive and offers an established, thriving community, which many of the newer sites such as Veoh and Revver have yet to develop.
Revver
Video ads are popular, and Revver wants you to make money by attaching ads to your videos. The site appends a small advertisement to the end of every uploaded video. Whenever someone clicks on one of those ads, the video submitter receives 50 percent of the revenue generated. You can also download videos without the aid of a desktop application, unlike Veoh and MetaCafe. If you then share that video via P2P or host it on your site, and a viewer clicks on the ad, that click is transmitted to Revver and you still make money. You have to have a PayPal account for all this to work, and you don't start receiving money until sixty days after your video garners $20 in total ad revenue.
Revver accepts most video formats. The site converts all movies to QuickTime. Revver says it's working on a way for users to send video via cell phone. The site just started an affiliate program: If you embed a video on your site and someone clicks an ad, you receive 20 percent of the revenue.
Revver faces two big obstacles. One, consumers may not be interested in clicking ads while browsing videos, especially if those ads have little or nothing to do with the content. Revver attaches ads to videos based on the video uploader's preference. You select video keywords when you upload, and you can also specify types of ads you don't want served. A more efficient system would serve ads based on user behavior. Recent advances in video ads, such as the ability to show hyperlinks in the video itself, are leapfrogging Revver's technology.
The second obstacle facing Revver is its uploading tool, which you have to download in order to submit a clip. And, once the clip is submitted, it can take up to two days for the video to be posted. This process removes the instant gratification most users have come to associate with a video site.
Despite these obstacles, Revver recently received $8.7 million in second-round funding.
Next Page: CastPost, Vimeo and ClipShack.
Castpost
Castpost is currently in alpha, so it's less complete than some of the established players. Case in point: It took me almost 2 minutes to figure out how to upload a video, and when I did, it crashed my browser.
The site's organizing principle is posting. When you create an account, you also create a blog, the URL of which is a castpost.com subdomain (for example, publish.castpost.com). Every video or podcast you upload is embedded on your blog (as WMV, AVI, MOV, 3GP or MP3). Each blog gets its own RSS feed and 100MB of storage. (The video upload size is limited to 50MB.) You can embed videos in other Web sites. You can also upload videos from your cell phone, according to the site. Currently, there are no social networking features, such as video ranking.
Castpost has the potential to be a good tool for bloggers who want a video blog with minimal setup and some amount of free storage. The question is whether users will want to organize their videos on Castpost blogs or will just prefer to organize them in other ways, such as marking them as "favorite" on services such as Veoh or YouTube. Or, to put it another way, are personal blogs integral or superfluous to the video-sharing phenomenon?
Vimeo
Vimeo is a video-sharing site developed by two guys who work for Connected Ventures, the company responsible for collegehumor.com and bustedtees.com. The site has basic ranking features; when you "dig" a clip, it gets promoted to the "popular dug clips" page. When you upload a clip, privacy settings are limited to activating "allow public tags" and "allow comments." You can invite friends to the service and then see those friends as contacts. You can also embed clips on your blog or site. The site allows you to upload a maximum of 20MB per week, and clips can be encoded in any format.
Vimeo is nicely designed. The Flash playback control is smooth and elegant. One problem I had when trying to use the site was that the videos didn't play. I had to check the user forums to discover that I needed to download the latest version of the Flash player. The site's developers say a new version is coming soon, so keep an eye out.
ClipShack
If there's a family-friendly video-sharing community on the Web, ClipShack is it. From the wholesome nature graphics to the videos of newborns, ClipShack is trying to be your mom's favorite video site. The site is a basic video-sharing and networking destination where you can upload clips, tag them, share them and keep them private, embed them in other sites or blogs, mark your favorites, view your friends' favorites, and so on. Web-savvy users may find the site limiting and without "Web 2.0" hipness. ClipShack plans to launch a paid version of the site, although basic membership will remain free.
Next Page: Jumpcut, Eyespot and DailyMotion.
Jumpcut
While Jumpcut is technically a video-sharing site, it really shines as a video-editing platform. The Flash-based video-editing tool allows you to grab other users' videos and audio or import your own and begin creating. You can either create a video from scratch or remix an existing video by clicking the "remix" button on the bottom right of each video. In editing mode, you can add titles and basic effects like cross-fade, and even control the duration of those effects. If you've joined several clips into a single file, Jumpcut allows you to zoom in on the timeline for easier editing.
Jumpcut's challenge, like other sharing sites, is to attract a critical mass of users. But while the appeal of video sharing is proven, it remains to be seen if video editing can draw a crowd. Jumpcut's most obvious competitors are desktop-editing programs and sites like eyespot.
Eyespot
Eyespot is very similar to Jumpcut, though the editing tools aren't as robust. That may be because the site is still in beta. Like Jumpcut, Eyespot allows you to upload your own video or remix video that's already on the site. And like Castpost, Eyespot automatically creates a video blog for you.
However, Eyespot's navigation can be confusing, partly because you can edit or delete any video on the site and make any video public or private. There's also no ranking of videos, which removes one popular aspect of community sites. Eyespot does have some community features, including friends and groups.
While Eyespot has some nice technology and the site is elegantly designed, the developers have a long way to go before they make this site usable by the general public.
DailyMotion
If you're looking beyond American borders for video, DailyMotion is for you. The site is a Paris-based video-sharing community. It has a pretty active European community. DailyMotion began to gain traffic in October of last year, and as of right now is neck and neck with the online community VidiLife. DailyMotion and YouTube are organized roughly the same way. There are links for viewing videos, channels, users and groups. DailyMotion also has a link for tags, which are featured more prominently than on YouTube.
Once you're through tagging, a screen appears asking you if you'd like to blog the video, share the video (e-mail it) or add it to a group. The blog option allows you to link the video to your blog or access several services' APIs. DailyMotion even includes a interface for recording video straight from your Web cam.
Tagging on DailyMotion can be confusing because of the multiple languages on the site. I wonder what effect, if any, this phenomenon could have on adoption.
Next Page: vSocial, Vidilife and YouTube.
vSocial
VSocial is a beta video-sharing site that launched late last year. It shares a "Web 2.0" look and feel with vimeo.com, a sharing site that garners about the same amount of traffic.
Like most other video-sharing sites, vSocial has tags, video ranking and sharing features such as embedding and posting to del.icio.us. Like Revver, vSocial inserts ads at the end of your videos, although vSocial doesn't require a desktop uploading tool.
Vidilife
Vidilife is a community site first, a video-sharing service second. But the site has a robust community that submits and comments often. Vidilife isn't a family destination, though. Videos, forums and profiles with risque content abound. There is a people search function that allows a high degree of specificity, as well as a blog search and creation tool. Like MySpace, Vidilife allows users to customize their profile pages. Vidilife videos play in the WMV format. Users can share videos in the customary manner by rating them, adding them to their favorites list, or embedding them in another site or blog.
YouTube
YouTube, which launched in August 2005, is one of the most popular sites on the Web. Although sites like Vimeo and MetaCafe have been around longer, YouTube captured a huge audience in a short amount of time and rocketed past them. In March, YouTube had almost 6 million unique visitors, according to ComScore Media Metrix. It gained widespread attention when several users uploaded an SNL skit, "Lazy Sunday," which garnered more than 1.5 million views before NBC insisted the clips be removed. YouTube has since entered into several partnerships with content providers, such as MTV Networks and Hollywood Records, which will provide unique content to the site.
YouTube's success may be the result of a clean, intuitive site that puts videos and users first. The site features video ranking prominently and lays all a user's options out in the main navigation bar. YouTube, unlike MetaCafe, Veoh and Revver, doesn't offer a desktop application, but that fact probably contributes to its popularity. YouTube has recently begun to allow users to customize their profiles and has added a members tab to promote more social networking functions.
YouTube received $3.5 million in funding in October 2005 and recently received $8 million more. But despite all its success, YouTube, like other video-sharing sites, may have difficulty monetizing its popularity. As the site's user base grows, so do its bandwidth expenses. YouTube's challenge now is to successfully partner with content creators or add another revenue generator, such as video ads. However, YouTube must be careful not to disrupt site characteristics, such as easy access and relatively clear video, that have contributed to its success.
1 Custom
research conducted for Ziff-Davis by ComScore Media Metrix, April 2006.
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