Viddler

Video hosting service Viddler is currently down and has been for the last 45 minutes or so (as of 8pm eastern). Viddler CEO Rob Sandie has been using Twitter to communicate with Viddler customers. It looks like most of the issue is around their content delivery network (CDN) Limelight. The latest update is:

Limelight says they had DOS attack, but they lost all power as well... not entirely sure.. but should be up soon

Follow SandieMan on Twitter for the latest service updates. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that Viddler has been down. Sandie has also posted a blog entry about the outage.

We recently wrote a column explaining how important it is to have a status page/blog where users can visit to know what's going on with outages and maintenance. Viddler just learned an important lesson - don't host the status page/blog on the same servers as the main service!

Update 9:15pm Eastern - Viddler is back - resume watching quality video product.

comScore is out with their latest online video report for March 2008 covering U.S. Internet users. YouTube continues to lead the pack and represents 98% of all videos in the Google Sites category. Tell me again why they keep Google Video around? It's seems Google abandoned it when they acquired YouTube.

Google moved up another 2.6 share points to 38% of all videos watched. The real telling statistic is that YouTube visitors watched an average of 50 videos each over the month. No one else comes close to this in the lead pack as Microsoft Sites comes in second with nearly 10 videos per user. More videos per user mean more ability and options to monetize over the session. In total videos watched, Fox Interactive came in second followed by Yahoo Sites, Viacom Digital and Microsoft Sites.

Another juicy bit in the report is that the average online video viewer watched 235 minutes of video. Wow. And with live video slowly taking off, this number will only continue to increase.

Video hosting service Viddler is announcing they have reached terms on an agreement to carry all of the Revision3 shows on Viddler's network. I am not exactly sure which side of the table this benefits more but I am guessing it's Viddler. If you are a fan of any of the Revision3 shows: GigaOm Show, Tekzilla, Kevin and Pal sit on a couch and drink beer for money or PixelPerfect, once you friend the show on Viddler, you will be instantly updated once new shows are available.

Viddler technical evangelist Colin Devroe has all of the details on the distribution partnership.

In all seriousness, this is an exciting deal for Viddler. It's good to see them continue to sign on partners and with their existing base of Web celebs, they on a great road towards mainstream adoption. Will Viddler be the one to challenge YouTube eventually as a video host? Viddler seems to be the only video host to be working on innovations and technology advancements. The Viddler player kicks the arse of all other video players.

Now we know why Kevin Rose was at the Viddler dinner at SXSW. He sat at the grownups table with Rob from Viddler and Revision3 CEO Jim Louderback.

Video hosting service Viddler is out today with a new Facebook application which I have to admit is pretty damn slick. It replicates the majority of functionality from Viddler.com into Facebook. Viddler's lead social developer Kyle Slattery was the man behind the application. The app uses Viddler's new open API and is a great way to show off the power of their API.

The Viddler Facebook app shows your videos plus the latest videos from Viddler and the daily highlighted videos. It appears to handle widescreen videos as well. Developer evangelist Colin Devroe tells me that soon search functionality will be added. You can also add videos into Viddler directly from inside Facebook. MORE »

Video messageboard application Seesmic appears to be entering the video blog comments game today. I suggested that Seesmic should get into this game last month (Loic, for the check, please spell my name Allen). Video host Viddler seems to be leading the video comments charge and currently their plugin works with Wordpress.

The new Seesmic video commenting system is live on Techcrunch (one of Seesmic's investors). Here is a screenshot from a post on Techcrunch:

Unfortunately my video camera isn't unpacked yet so I can't test it. Michael Arrington from Techcrunch commented last week that he has a lot of trolls and losers who comment on TC and that he spends an hour every day removing comments. What will it be like now that there will be video?

I am guessing that if you post a video comment using the Seesmic plugin, it will create a thread in the Seesmic application. Will video comments help save Seesmic? Perhaps it will help as I've suggested before that I like the idea of being able to contribute in the fashion you prefer on a blog (audio, video, text). With Loic's smile and charm, I am sure that many blogs will install the plugin which will lead to greater visibility for Seesmic. As for the Seesmic app itself, I still struggle as to why video is a better medium for a messageboard than text is.

Online video host Viddler has a variety of updates coming out of their PA headquarters tonight. Community Evangelist Colin Devroe has moved to a newly created role as Technology Evangelist. In this role, Devroe tells me he will focus on, "setting up a developer community that will use Viddler's platform for their own applications/services/businesses. I will also be working with licensed partners to help them get up and running using our systems."

Joning the Viddler team as the new Community Leader is Brandice Tolson. Tolson is one of the most active people using Viddler and I think it's a good move. Lastly, intern Kyle Slattery is now full time as Lead Social Developer.

The other update is product focused. Viddler has updated their Wordpress plugin and it's now more than just video comments. It's a tight tie into Viddler where you can see the featured videos and search for videos to insert inside of a Wordpress post.

Inside is a video overview Devroe created explaining the updates. Caution: if you get sea sick, you might not want to view this video.

At the core of Seesmic is a threaded discussion forum using video. One person starts a thread, others follow, all using video. I've written about Seesmic several times before including an initial demo video.

Earlier this week Mashable installed a new plugin from Viddler that allows site visitors to comment on articles using video. In 24 hours I've watched about 30 video comments.

Why do I believe the combination of blog/cms is stronger than Seesmic? Because it allows the content publisher and his or her audience to interact, each in their own preferred medium. I may prefer to start in text, John wants to reply with video, Mary with audio, Rachel with text. Together we are forming a combined discussion that doesn't force us into one medium, be it text (currently for most blogs) or video (as Seesmic does).

To make this model perfect, we need three things. Audio recording capabilities, mobile commenting and video/audio transcription. The transcription is important because if users will contribute in their preferred method, they should be able to consume in as many ways as possible. These new input and ouput options could bring real innovation to the blog space which has set relatively still for a couple of years.

And how will the live video services (Qik/Flixwagon) be able to play in this new blog realm? I believe Seesmic is working on live video as well.

Perhaps Seesmic could offer a plugin similar to what Viddler is offering to enhance their current video offering. Viddler has a variety of innovative features but lacks the YouTube buzz and take rate. If they could figure out how to bundle the video commenting plugin into a variety of blog and CMS platforms, it could help elevate and provide a strong distribution model for Viddler.

What's your take? Are video comments the future? Do you prefer the Seesmic video threading to the traditional blog setup?

During SXSW, Viddler held a dinner with a variety of videobloggers and Internet celebs. It was one of the coolest events I've been to in quite a while. The party was held to welcome in the new Viddler home page (codenamed Red Carpet).

So which celebs were there? iJustine, Rocketboom'rs Andrew Baron, Joanne Colan, Ellie Rountree, Kevin Rose, Jim Louderback, Sarah Meyers and I met the guys behind the Viddler programming and design which was great. The most heated discussion came when Justine began to ask everyone what their favorite candybar is. Twix won while a frozen Charleston Chew came in a close second.

Here are some of the photos from the evening with my captions:

Now how do I get that sticker on the Diggnation laptop?

Can the wine man actually do what he says he does on the tv show?

I made a joke - everyone laughed

"You see Gary and Sarah, that's Allen over there from CN, I've just got to meet him!"

Viddler = peace

"Gary dude, I am working here!"

You see people, the smell tells me it's a combination of shoe leather and a ripe canteloupe.

Video sharing site Viddler has launched the public release of their Wordpress video commenting plugin today. This allows anyone with a Wordpress blog to not only offer text comments but now more interactive video comments. This is quite innovative and could continue to help set Viddler apart from the other video hosting companies. I find that Viddler has more innovative features than any other video host currently available including YouTube.

It's like a better version of Seesmic because it allows me as the author to provide text and let users reply in their choice of text or video. Now they need to enable mobile access somehow so if a user reads a post on a mobile rss device, they can easily reply with a video reply. The videos play in a mini-Viddler window inside of the Wordpress blog.

One of the things I've noticed is the majority of video players currently being used across the Internet put up a large stop sign after the selected video has been played. This morning I watched a video from Kara Swisher that did exactly that. I've embedded the video below so you get the idea.

Most of the large video sharing sites (e.g. YouTube, Viddler, DailyMotion, etc.) offer some videos to switch to after the first one has completed. How many people actually switch off to another video? Isn't there a better way?

As a marketer, I don't understand the reasoning behind stopping the video after the initial selection has completed. Kara has a huge library of great videos but unfortunately the viewer may never see any of them. There should be a never-ending stream of Kara's videos for me to hop from one to the next. This new stream would allow me to see more of Kara's work, interact with it, and potentially find something I'd be likely to share.

Here's an idea for the video sharing sites: When I upload a video, allow me to pick a "piggyback video". The piggyback video is the one I'd like to play after the initial video. The way it would work is also simple. Video A plays, short delay to select another video and if nothing is selected, Video B begins. For home made video players and corporate-players like Brightcove (which powers Kara's videos), make a stream. Even if we only move from one video to two back-to-back videos, the branding and reach just doubled. Technical how-to videos would also benefit from piggybacking. I could show one way to solve the Rubik's cube and then piggyback someone else and their way to solve it.

There are some analytics issues to work through with this idea but the positive content and marketing benefits are strong enough that the idea is worth a look.