Choose Wisely: Selecting An Online Video Platform
Analytics
All OVPs offer analytics packages. But the most frequently mentioned feature in my interviews was "drop-off" statistics, which identify where most viewers stopped watching the video. For Atlassian’s Simons, this helped the company understand how to design videos that its customers would watch longer. "We know when viewers stop watching our videos, which helps us understand how to produce videos that keep our viewers engaged."
Beer Tap TV’s Boles takes another tack: "Many of our viewers watch from start to finish, especially our shorter shows, which are generally beer reviews. Still, after checking our analytics and seeing when viewers leave, we make sure to insert our advertisements in the first 3 minutes just to make sure that most viewers see them."
Pricing
In general, OVP pricing dropped dramatically as the largest media clients got signed and more OVPs entered the fray, making pricing more competitive. However, there are still large variances in pricing and pricing structure. Dennis Smith, founder of iFocusToday (www.ifocustoday.com), chose Marcellus.tv primarily because its pricing structure unbundled features from bandwidth cost, allowing iFocusToday to choose the level of required features and then just pay for consumed bandwidth. Marcellus packages start at $5 per month for videos up to 20 minutes in length. But if you need longer videos or want to insert preroll or overlay advertisements, you’ll have to pay a minimum of $75 per month.
For Smith, the low-end package was ideal. "The low-end plan fits my needs, so I have a minimum fixed cost and then just pay for bandwidth. Since the service is based upon the Amazon S3 Cloud, I know that they can scale [it] to meet my needs."
LegalMinds.tv’s Colwin wanted to make sure that pricing was based upon actual bandwidth consumption rather than on clicks. "If the viewer only watches 1 minute of video," he commented, "I don’t want to pay for the entire video." He also cautioned that while low-volume, low-cost pricing is nice, "You also have to assume success and calculate and compare pricing 6 and 12 months out to really understand how the vendors compare."
Final Thoughts
Both Colwin and Sun’s Crowe had some interesting high-level thoughts when it came to choosing an OVP. For Crowe, part of Sun’s decision was a feeling that Brightcove’s product offering was bigger than what Sun’s vision for video distribution was at the time. "When we looked at the Brightcove system, we saw lots of capabilities that we didn’t even know we wanted until we saw the potential," Crowe says. "That made us feel confident that the platform would meet both our current and future requirements."
Colwin focused on the financial and administrative cost of changing CDNs and wanted to make sure that he chose a company that not only met his current needs but would also be around for a while. "There’s a high cost of converting OVPs, including potentially reuploading all the videos, additional redevelopment, and the embarrassment of having to reach out to all of my customers and tell them that they have to change their embed codes. Before I choose an OVP, I want to know how long they’ve been in business, who their reference clients are, and how they’re funded to help ensure that I don’t need to make a change down the road."
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