Online Video Information

Michael Buczek - February 10, 2009

With the popularity of online video increasing everyday, it is not surprising to see people utilizing online video sites to promote their products or services.     More than 14 billion people watched online videos in December of 2008 which was a 13 percent increase over November as reported by comScore Video Metrix service.   YouTube, which is owned by Google, is the clear leader in online video.   While you should be promoting your videos on YouTube, there are a few other channels that seem to be doing the right things and could eventually be contenders for the valuable video market.   Some favorites include:

Vimeo — Like YouTube, you can upload videos, join groups and comment on other videos.   Vimeo does allow you to pay for a pro subscription which enables you to upload more videos per month, and offer your viewers high definition .

VideoSurf — This site is a little different in that you must have your videos hosted on your site and then submit a video feed.   The unique patent pending feature of VideoSurf is that they claim to have technology that can “see” inside your video to index content about videos.   The idea behind this is to ensure that the video that people click on contain the information they were actually looking for.   Many times a user will click on the video thumbnail expecting one thing and before they know it, they have been “Rick-Rolled”.  

Blinx — Unlike other multimedia search engines that attempt to re-purpose technology built for the Text Web, Blinkx uses a unique combination of patented conceptual search, speech recognition and video analysis software to efficiently, automatically and accurately find and qualify online video.   Unlike other sites, you don’t actually upload a video, but if you have video on your site, there is a chance that Blinkx can crawl it and index it for their engine.

By utilizing many different video formats and channels, you have a better opportunity to reach those who are already watching video online.   Videos can also be used and embedded into your other marketing initiatives such as press releases, social media channels (Facebook and MySpace) and email blasts.   Video is very easy to use and can help you to deliver your marketing message in a new and interesting way.