It has been hard in the past to publish video on the web reliably, for a number of reasons, low bandwidth being the larger of the limiting factors. But there are many more users with fat bandwidth and big monthly quotas then there were 12 months ago. In November 2006 Australia’s largest internet provider Telstra, launched ADSL2+ and uncapped its ADSL1 services. Accordingly, the appetite for broadband has grown. Various reliable sources report :

  • internet usage increased by 4% in 2007 to 74% of the population (ITU)
  • there are approximately 5 million broadband connections australia-wide (OECD)

Video content authors have responded :

  • regular TV programs especially news and current affairs are available for download shortly after broadcast
  • extended programming, and behind the scenes material is published to TV network websites

Socially, video is devoured. YouTube has become the new ‘free-to-air’ TV channel for many households. The Funwall facebook application continues to fill with video referred to you by your friends.

Publishing video has become increasingly more convenient and accessible, particularly via mobile. YouTube now offers an upload service directly from your mobile phone or PDA. There are also a couple of Facebook applications that do the same thing, Zannel being one of them. A Brisbane company called Zacware have released a very easy to use video publishing tool called !SMACK! that can publish video directly to your YouTube or MySpace account. It converts your selected video file and uploads the video straight from your desktop.

Video and your business

The impacts of faster broadband and popular video based applications are already being felt by business. You can expect your customers will be looking for video content now more than ever and the appetite for video will continue to increase. Sites that offer related video content on their products and/or services pages stand to sell more. Video has greater potential (over other forms of content) to entertain and encourage enthusiasm in your products and services.

Tips for website owners:

  • integrate video content in your website and ask your website solutions company to allow for video publishing via your content management system
  • ensure your current hosting facility has the capacity to handle the larger than usual load associated with serving video files
  • there is such a thing as ‘bad video’. Engage the services of a creative video publishing agency if you do not already have these creative services available to you