Did You Say Video On the Web Was Free?

In these difficult economic times, it’s nice to hear that something is free. And today, something is: video streaming on the web.

For many companies, daily reports from the media about huge losses on Wall Street and in the Fortune 5000 translates into a big red stop sign. “We’ll wait until things improve,” is a common phrase. In the next room, the VP of sales is telling his sales team, “you’ve got to do more than ever to close those sales!” For many people, our economic workflow has slipped into a catch 22.

But there are methods for reaching out. Using video is just one of them. YouTube is now showing billions of videos every month. That’s more, not less. Vimeo, a high-end video distribution site, is also growing, not contracting.

There are some important factors related to this. Just several years ago, streaming video from your own servers or host could be very costly. Video uses more bandwidth than text or most other data files. Just several years ago, we had several dedicated servers set up purely for the purpose of supporting streaming files. No more.

Today, we utilize third-party resources for nearly all of our streaming requirements – and those of our clients. It’s free or nearly so. That’s a great phrase in these times.

But, it’s equally important to have something to say. And that’s where our creativity can come into play. I’ll write more about that in a few days.