Do you use video to promote yourself and your work? Are you a video producer, graphic artist, musician or other creative type with a website? Actually this tip would apply to any business at all that uses video on their webpage…
Some friends are starting a new website and they have a really cool logo animation on the front page – but it’s in QuickTime format and clearly hosted right on their own site. This kind of hosting has some advantages I suppose…more of as sense of control and you can set the quality. But what are the advanatages of instead uploading the video to a site like YouTube or Vimeo and then embedding that versions?
The minor one is the bandwidth savings – you’re not pushing a large file from your own web server – but internet bandwidth has gotten cheap. I think the big advantage is that you are cross promoting, starting conversations and getting your video out there in the world when you host it other places. Quality isn’t even much of an issue on a site like Vimeo, which pushes some great looking stuff and in HD, if you want…something YouTube is just starting to get around to. There’s why Vimeo seems to get used for showing off things like cool 35mm adaptors - it just looks nicer than YouTube. That in turn means that Vimeo is starting to build a little community of people who care about video quality – which might matter to you if you’re trying to sell your services for doing visuals.
So, consider using an outside service to deliver content on your own page…you might begin to find a whole new audience.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I work for a very large school district that does the best it can to block sites that it deems questionable. I frown every time I see something is linked back to youtube. I can never see it and always forget to go back to it when I get home.
I love when things are privately hosted or are posted on Vimeo. It makes my break time happier and me a lot less cranky.
If you post on youtube, there will be many users who might get blocked then not bother with it after the fact.
Vimeo has a WAY better picture and i love that the community is growing, but I still post to YouTube for the traffic that may just “bump in” to me.
I have noticed that Vimeo seemed to have some buffering issues this past week. Maybe it’s getting too popular too fast?
Great post. Thanks!
I encourage everyone to use third party sites like YouTube or Flickr for two reasons. One is bandwidth savings, but more importantly it allows every upload to become a conversation. Not just on their site, but on the host’s as well. The picture on Flickr may attract the attention of people that would never see your site otherwise. Same with a video on YouTube. Use it for the social aspects, it will reward.