Choosing an Online Video Platform
Interactivity is one of the key features offered by Veeple’s product offering. I spoke to one client, Sean Malarkey of Great City Real Estate, who uses streaming video extensively in his website. Sean creates his video walk-throughs of homes using a standard digital camera, usually in one take and without any narration. He adds catchy background music and then posts the videos to YouTube and to his own website. On his website, he uses Veeple to allow viewers to download a PDF file with pictures of the house and a map of the surrounding area or his standard real estate contract, which saves a step in the sales cycle (Figure 6).
Figure 6. If users click the PDF logo in this Veeple video, they can download pictures of a house and a map of the area around it.
Malarkey commented that the videos on his site plus those on YouTube have increased his Google rating and website traffic immensely, allowing him to increase revenue, even in these challenging economic times. He was a great fan of the interactivity Veeple offered, plus the affordable $49-a-month price for unlimited videos.
More Eyeballs
One of the benefits of UGC sites is the ability to entice extra eyeballs to your video; most SaaS vendors also offer several features to make this happen. As we’ve discussed, most SaaS vendors allow you to make your player embeddable, so third parties can embed the videos in blogs and other websites or can easily send a link to the video via email. Other vendors allow you to create custom players for distributors and other partners.
If you’re seeking to create a community around your videos, look for a vendor that offers text and video comments and viewer ratings. If you’re deploying video to both your own site and to YouTube, look for a service such as Ooyala that will upload videos to YouTube and Bebo as part of the normal video deployment process.
Integration
If you’re hosting your own WordPress blog, wiki, or Drupal-enabled site, an internet TV platform that integrates directly into these functions would be an attractive solution. Kaltura, for example, offers its technology as SaaS, like many other vendors, but it also offers a free, open source package that you can install on your own server.
To be clear, users can integrate most UGC or SaaS players into wikis, WordPress blogs, and other webpages by copying and pasting HTML snippets into the webpage. The difference with Kaltura is that by using plug-ins specifically designed for WordPress or a wiki, Kaltura’s technology integrates directly into the blog or wiki’s icon and menu structure, making it easier for users to integrate content into the site (Figure 7).
Figure 7. Kaltura’s technology embedded into a Wiki
Though probably not relevant for smaller companies (because Kaltura’s code is open source), you can also customize it yourself or pay an integrator to add features or make other changes. One other unique feature of Kaltura’s technology, whether self-hosted or deployed as a SaaS, is a simple online video editor that users can use to perform cut-and-paste edits, as well as simple titles and transitions.
Other Features
Though it’s unlikely that small, nonmedia corporations would need these capabilities, you should know that most SaaS vendors integrate with the major advertising servers; they also syndicate your videos to other sites. If your videos consistently go viral, you may be able to make some cash from either advertising or syndication.
Finally, before choosing a vendor, check its support policies. VMIX’s were among the most extensive that I noticed, and they included an assigned account manager who is on call 24/7. Again, if you consider the streaming video mission critical to your enterprise, having the help that is necessary to keep it up and running is a significant strategic advantage.
Summary
Where does that leave us? As I mentioned, unless you have a lot of in-house, streaming-related knowledge, posting videos to your own website isn’t free, and it offers none of the benefits of UGC sites or SaaS offerings. UGC sites provide encoding and content delivery, but they can’t match the flexibility of SaaS offerings, and they fall far short of the service necessary when video delivery is critical to your day-to-day operation.Today, SaaS vendors present a range of functions and benefits that UGC sites really can’t match at a pay-as-you-go price that virtually all businesses should be able to afford. That said, the eyeballs that sites such as YouTube and Facebook generate are extremely alluring. Overall, many small companies would be best served by a hybrid approach that involves both UGC and SaaS product offerings.