Lately I have questioned whether YouTube can pull off being a professional video platform for small companies and entrepreneurs to add self-generated video to their sites. It kind of reminds me of the internal debate I have as to whether Facebook is a good professional networking tool.
I wonder if future journalism students will laugh when I say that when my colleagues and I first tried to put videos on our student newspaper site, we used YouTube because there wasn't anything else available to us. In a short period of time that same student-run newspaper has developed a robust multimedia operation (my, how times change).
The point is that YouTube seems so juvenile to me. I skeptically sense it emerging as a more legit way to display video content, as corporations dip their paws into it and older generations use it more frequently. YouTube is a place where companies and media outlets like CNN post their content for the masses -- but on their own sites, they still stick to more professional presentation. However, not everyone can afford custom-made video players and (finally she gets to the news peg!), there aren't as many options these days for low-budget, low-tech video platforms.
Brightcove has long been the leader of a free and professional video platform. It is acceptable for big-time media corporations and amateur videographers alike. Meanwhile, Google-owned YouTube, which more than dominates online video-viewing overall (San Francisco Business Times), has never been as acceptable to put on a professional company Web site.
Then the announcement came that Brightcove is canceling it's free consumer product to focus on professional partnerships, leaving YouTube as the only free outlet for amateurs (Contentinople). Could this change how YouTube is used? Right now, sure, it's fun to use as a clip in a blog, but I can't imagine really using it to do legitimate video. And if we started doing that, I bet YouTube would start charging anyway!
On the other hand, I don't mean to be a new media snob (as you can tell from my low-tech site). Am I assuming YouTube is tacky because I grew up with it as a fun place to watch clips of cats doing the darndest things -- not to do video journalism or professional promotional content? It will be interesting to see where YouTube goes.
You never know, Facebook has thrown me for a loop when it starting remaking itself as professional networking tool, and I found myself deleting pictures of keg stands. So maybe YouTube is headed down the more professional path.
YouTube the Sell-Out
Obviously the most legitimate companies have caught on to the viral importance of YouTube and have developed partnerships with the site. The Google takeover made it less of a bootleg site, which was expected. Furthermore, as the big-time companies have taken notice of YouTube, they have already begun changing YouTube's "anything goes" style (look out for the second news peg!).
Take Warner brothers, which, after developing a partnership with YouTube, has begun demanding that it take down videos from its artists and songwriters -- which includes millions of professional and user-generated content (Financial Times). I expect to see this "cleaning up" to continue, which will tarnish the harmless content of people posting videos of a birthday party set against a Gwen Stefani song (that was one of my favorites, which I'm not going to link to...).
So, at least for now, the involvement of big corporations is only ruining YouTube's makeshift charm, while adding no more of a professional aesthetic (which could change). Right now it's on the path to being a fun place to post videos, minus a lot of the fun and millions of the videos.
I look forward to any thoughts or examples you can add to the conversation.
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3 comments:
I can't blame Brightcove for canceling its free service. The few extra features its paid-for platform offered weren't worth the lofty price, so Brightcove ended up being its own competition.
When the free platform went down this month, our magazine was faced with the decision of either shelling out $6,000+ per year for the lowest-tier package at Brightcove (for which we previously paid nothing), or losing all our content and starting from scratch with a new service. We weighed the options and opted to develop our own video platform in-house.
Just this past week I migrated all our content onto YouTube, where our news videos are getting a surprisingly great number of hits. But like you, Ellie, I shudder at the thought of embedding a YouTube video directly onto our website. In short, YouTube videos can be acceptable and even professional, as long as they stay on YouTube.
For embedded news videos, the only way to go for me is either Brightcove or a custom alternative. (For what it's worth, we are developing ours from the open-source JW Player.)
But maybe I am just old school new media.
Christopher,
Thanks so much for the comment and
That is great feedback about how you are able to use YouTube successfully. I feel affirmed that someone else sees my geeky aversion to embedding YouTube on a site (unless it's to display a funny clip or something -- not original content). I'm glad your mag was able to develop it's own player. It's tough for entrepreneurs who don't have that option, so in some cases I could see how they would turn to YouTube.
"old school new media" -- I love it! I'm with you!
No idea why that first sentence was weird! Woops.
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