Huh? A real estate video guy saying this?

Managing video content online is generally available using only four methods (listed below).  All of them are limiting in their own way for business users and here's shocker - none of the methods are actually geared to help you sell products and services. Read on...

Method #1 - Channels:

Almost every video site uses the YouTube-like implementation of channels. We've become so accustomed to using channels that no one ever questions their value. Here are some things to think about with respect to channels.

- Channels Include Only Videos Uploaded To That Infrastructure: When I think of channels I think of my TV...different content on different channels but all on my TV. Ever see an online video channel that includes mixes of video from different providers? Me neither. Channels online are more like mail order catalogs than TV channels since, like catalogs, you have to individually go to each one to see what is in it.

- Channels Are Geared To Content Producers Not Viewers: Channels were made for content producers to store their content not for viewers to consume it. If channels were made for viewers to actually find content then why are channels generally named for their owners and rarely (if ever) searchable by channel? Does my user name, marfie, give you any indication of what may be in that channel? No. There is almost no chance of discoverabilty for videos at the channel level without either prior knowledge of my user name or an assumption that my videos will be appropriately tagged and individually found by search videos. In either of these cases, what's the win in channels for a given user? 

- Channels Don't Work So Well With Large Amounts of Video Content: Talking about managing a few videos in pretty simple. However, think about what happens when your organization begins to expand their video content to include dozens or even hundreds of videos. Sending users to a channel where they may have to wade or page through dozens of videos to find the right one doesn't seem like a scalable solution to me.

- Channels Aren't Business Oriented: You and/or your org has worked hard to gain value in your branding. Now, when your videos are watched from your channel, your customers may be distracted by related content that perhaps isnt your own.

Method #2 - Cut & Pasting Video Players Or Widgets

Cutting and pasting is the traditional method for distributing video content into webpages or blog posts. Certainly, there is soe value in cutting and pasting a player or widget, but there also are fairly strong limitations to the process.

- Potential for Viral Exceeds Realistic Chances For Business Videos: Almost all video players have some sort of "Grab This Widget" or way to re-paste embed code for a given video. This rarely if ever happens and you better off focusing on how to get your video i font of prospective buyers than trying to make a viral video that likely wont be.

- Audience: For business applications, audience shouldn't be measured in terms of just numbers but also proclivity to consume the types of products or services that your business video is offering. The value of cutting and pasting is generally limited to the value of websites that you and your friends close enough to be willing to paste the widget have.  This may be great for people at the top of Google for competitive keywords for consumers of products or services like yours or A-List bloggers that have a large audience but likely isn't such a benefit for someone with a normal level of visitors to their site. Remember that the success metrics for a typical youtube video are sheer views and not the number of sales made.

- Distribution and Scale: A cut and paste approach only scales when the individuals manage the cutting and pasting themselves. Large portal websites with lots of traffic and centrally managed content wont spend the manhours necessary to manually cut and paste video content.  'Nuf said.

Method 3: Emailing links

We all love email and in many ways it is the killer app.  It is included here because it is one popular method for managing and distributing video content. 

- Scale: When emailing links, you have to either send individual emails or a giant email with everyone's name. This isnt very scalable.

- Fragmented Storage: You aren't in control of the organizational habits of the email recipient or the email storage rules of their organization.  Finding the emails with videos sent weeks ago may prove to be a challenge for some folks.

- Reliability of Receipt: SPAM filters and the like all limit the chances that mail with attachments, too many links, or lots of addressees making it to their final destination.

Method #4 - RSS

- Level of technical ability: Ask your customers how many of them know what RSS is and it wont matter if their browser can use it or not.

At Vidlisting, we are working on ways to overcome some of these issues. For instance, in this narrated video demonstration, you can see an example of mixing content from Real Estate Shows and Youtube into a channel and then quickly sharing that mixed channel out to other users that can quickly find it by description rather than user name. No RSS needed - just some mouse clicks. Not shown is that you can also push the same content to groups of friends with just a few mouseclicks.

The platform will also be available for use in your own website or blog network with your own content and look/feel.

Hopefully, you'll start to view video channels online with a different eye. They work well for general videos.  They aren't set up well for business users, are difficult to effectively manage with volume, and don't contribute to video views from prospective consumers of your products or services.

Tony