The video-web: local is lekker
MYVIDEO: The South African choice for online video
THE recent merger of YouTube with Google Video has resulted in a frustrating bug for all online video fans. YouTube videos embedded in other websites or blogs (and often the ones on YouTube.com) are displaying the polite message: “We’re sorry, this video is no longer available.”
This has caused somewhat of a conspiracy among bloggers, who are digging deep to find answers and possible solutions to the problem.
One blogger has suggested that unplayable YouTube videos embedded elsewhere force viewers to go to YouTube’s website – increasing their traffic and ad impressions. It’s obvious that increased traffic leads to increased ad impressions and therefore more money, yet I suspect that this is not the case.
It appears to be a simple bug issue and the problem can be resolved by deactivating Google Web Accelerator.
PROUDLY SOUTH AFRICAN
I have been producing online videos on a weekly basis for the past few months. I have been uploading these on both YouTube and MyVideo (which is basically the South African version of YouTube). I also embed these videos into my blog but always use the MyVideo code when doing so. This is purely to keep my blog local and support the South African underdog, yet my experience of using both channels has revealed a few pros and cons for each service.
First off your videos are likely to get far more views on MyVideo, especially if you’re producing South African videos. There are far fewer videos to compete with for viewership and the site was designed for proudly South African videos.
Statistically I’ve found that the same videos on my MyVideo channel generally get about 3 times more views than they do on YouTube, unless (it seems) your video is about an international celebrity or degrading to South Africa in some way. In the latter case my mock video on the Eskom crisis has had over 1000 more views on YouTube than it has on MyVideo.
YouTube – Pros & Cons
Two great features of YouTube, on the other hand, are annotations and YouTube insight – the latter made possible since Google took YouTube under its wing. This tool allows us to see exactly how and from where people came to view our videos. More importantly, it allows one to gain insight as to where your video has been embedded on other external sites.
One downside of YouTube, however, is that they are very strict about copywrite. I once used a song as a bedding track for one of my videos, and thanks to Google’s help, YouTube picked up the file name of the song saved within the avi file and traced it as belonging to UMG. An automated email I received stated that they would not pull the video yet could place adverts on the page where the video is hosted. Needless to say I now have an over-sized advert for the new iphone accompanying this video (subject to change).
(This was not picked up by myvideo.co.za).
I was recently contacted by Tristan Owen who works for www.myvideo.co.za after reporting a bug issue (another bonus of the smaller video site is the greater customer care)! He has asked for any suggestions with regards to improving the site. Since online video is fast becoming my career and life ambition, I sent him a mini essay with an apology note attached.
He’s looking into some of my ideas (video statistics being a major one) and is hoping to have them implemented soon. I’ll keep all those interested posted on whatever upgrades we can expect. In the meantime please add any suggestions you might have below and upload your videos to MyVideo. Local can be lekker!
How to create your own online videos: Movie Making 101 – a simple guide
Did you ever consider using royalty-free music as your backing track? It adds to your production time but maybe you can get some mates/girlfriends to do some for you. People (pros) laugh at me when I tell them I sometimes use Ejay software, amongst others. Also available are sound effects of all sorts of things that can enhance your soundtrack. Give it a whirl – just be careful that you don’t get hooked on mixing sound & end up as DJ Galen :-D
lol, my DJ days are long over ;)
I used to do radio / sound-mixing at varsity. I started building up quite a large library of sounds and tracks. But as you say, it really does add signifiantly to production time. Also, an appropriate song usually pops into my head while I edit. It may be wise to start doing things differently though
Thank you for the links Mark Lewis – I really appreciate any contributions towards the creative cause :)