Viddler Archive

Video hosting service Viddler has announced the launch of a new service today, 15s. The idea behind 15s is to create videos using a webcam of 15 seconds or less. The videos are then instantly sent to your Twitter buddy list. The videos also appear in your Viddler video stream. Assuming this service becomes popular, it might be good for Viddler to allow a split between regular videos and these new 15s videos. Viddler evangelist Colin Devroe tells me that this is the 1.0 version and more enhancements are on the way.

This new Viddler service is direct competition for recently launched 12seconds. If they add text and video comments, it could be strong competition for Seesmic. Earlier this year, Seesmic followed Viddler into the video blog commenting space.

Viddler recently launched a fully-customizable player and Viddler Vidgets. Here’s an example of a 15s video from RandomSarah:

Update: Sarah had no idea how she would use 15s an hour ago and now she is addicted to it:

Video hosting service Viddler has announced that they are the official video sharing site for the New Media Expo conference later this week in Las Vegas.

The big news is that at the event they will launch a fully customizable player. The Viddler logo can be swapped out for your logo (we do that here on CN now). The video can link to your site instead of linking to Viddler which will drive traffic back to your site instead of to the Viddler video page. There apparently will also be some iTunes integration. All of these changes are very positive and add to what I consider the best overall video player on the market. It’s good to see that they listened to my suggestions. :-P

Next, I’d like to see a video mashup application which allows me to inject an intro/outro into each video I upload. This way all I need to upload is the "meat" of the video. This would also help with re-branding the videos at anytime because the mashup would happen in real-time as the video is streamed to the viewer. That’d be hot.

Viddler could also add kyte-style branding by allowing a “frame” to wrap the videos with the producer’s branding. Again, that’d be hot. If they really want to get freaky, they could allow the video producer’s ad network to be inserted into the “frame” and it could follow as the video is embedded if the producer chooses.

Check out Viddler CEO Rob Sandie and Technology Evangelist Colin Devroe in the video below talking about both announcements. Watch for the cheap pops about halfway in when they throw a "vaynerchuk" out to the crowd.

Viddler recently launched Vidgets which are a collection of video widgets. Earlier this year Viddler launched a Facebook app.

As I create more videos and have more discussions with online video talent, the conversation seems to move many times to finding the optimum hosting and distribution structure for video. I want to make sure my viewers never hit a dead end and can easily find other videos to view from the series. Since at least half of my videos are business-oriented, the idea of putting them on YouTube and hoping for the "viral effect" is not attractive. Earlier this year I wrote about the online video market here in NYC and I see it continuing to expand today.

Currently I am using Viddler almost exclusively for my videos. I like Viddler because their player allows for in-stream commenting and their upload function is easy-to-use. I find the uploading function on YouTube to be absolute crap, can’t they even offer an upload status bar?!? For the purposes of this discussion, we will only discuss pre-recorded video content and not live services (Mogulus, Ustream) or mobile video streaming (Kyte, Qik, Flixwagon).

I get the idea behind services like TubeMogul which put your content everywhere and I will probably look at doing this as well. But it’s critical from my standpoint that you select a video sharing/hosting partner to work with in which you can build your video brand. This means that the player that’s used on the video creator’s site remain consistent over time. Some video content creators are being paid to use services and I see this trend continuing as the video creation market expands and hosting networks fight to get out of the commodity business.

There are a number of indie video stars on the scene today. I’ve selected Justine and Gary Vaynerchuk to use as examples with regards to how they use various video hosting networks for their videos and shows. When I check out Justine’s Web site, she seems to use YouTube as her first choice and it’s clear that this strategy has helped her with growing her brand. Justine has over 18,000 subscribers on YouTube. These subscribers drive massive views to her videos. She uses Viddler as well for some videos and all of her videos are distributed there as well. Gary Vaynerchuk at WineLibraryTV uses Viddler for the main player on the site. Gary also has a distribution deal with Revision3 which publishes a shorter wine show on Revision3 and other video hosting providers including YouTube.

There are more options than ever for video hosting - from the most basic YouTube through working with distribution partners like ForYourImagination who can produce, record and package the shows. Viddler, Vimeo, Veoh all sit in the middle and I’d consider blip.tv a "show" distributor.

Below is the setup I have been considering for the videos I create on CN. My goal is to find the best combination of:

• reaching the largest audience
• using the best technology
• using a player with good usability for the viewer
• outside distribution to as many sources as possible
• tracking and analytics
• ability to monetize the videos over time — either with cpm views or finding a sponsor

Business Shows:

These are videos I shoot of product demos and also include our interviews like the one we shot with Dina Kaplan last week. I am looking at using blip.tv for these videos. blip.tv can offer me a gallery player to allow viewers to watch any video they like. blip.tv also has an advertising network and also works with shows to find sponsors. This is very attractive to me - especially in the beginning. blip.tv will also distribute the shows to iTunes which could work relatively well for creating loyal viewers.

Fun Videos:

These videos include the Twitter Song and How to Effectively Quit Blogging. I see continuing to post these videos on Viddler because the interactivity and community there is a perfect fit for these videos.

Conclusion

I’d love some feedback on my thoughts and suggested video network usage for CN. What am I missing in creating the right mix? The next mission is to get a better video setup and move away from my tiny Canon Elph to something a bit more professional.

Editor’s note: I am not paid (nor have I been) for using any video service to-date.

Central Pennsylvania-based video hosting service Viddler has announced the launch of Vidgets today. Vidgets are widgets using videos hosted by Viddler. Viddler describes Vidgets as, "With Vidgets you can create lists of videos using any Viddler username, a tag on Viddler, a combination of the two, featured videos, popular videos here on Viddler."

Creating a Vidget is pretty easy although the code doesn’t show up until you hit preview which is in another colum - bit odd on the usability. Below is a Vidget I made by searching for iPhone videos featuring iJustine. It’s a "list" Vidget - there are also playlist and reel Vidgets.

What would be interesting to know is if the vidgets are automatically updated as new content that matches your selections is added to Viddler. Also it would be great if you could order the videos as you prefer. For example, I may want the video placed in the 3rd position to actually show up first. Would give the Vidget more of a storyline.

Considering that the Vidget code combines HTML and the Flash Viddler player, they are missing a golden opportunity for some heavy search engine optimization! Why not slap a simple "This Vidget Built By Viddler" or "XYZ Vidget Built By Viddler". All of the cool kids are doing it - see Scribd or Docstoc for good examples.

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.

*Rankings based on video content sites; excludes video server networks. Online video includes both streaming and progressive download video.

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.