Upgrade from YouTube to an OVP: Here's How to Justify Your Case

There comes a time when companies outgrow YouTube as a video host and need to move onto something more fully-featured and professional. Getting your boss to understand that, however, might take some work.

How can video managers justify moving from a free or low-cost host to an online video provider (OVP)? At the recent Streaming Media East conference in New York City, Theresa Regli, a principal analyst and managing director for technology research firm Real Story Group, gave the audience stats to use when making their case.

"Online purchases, if anyone's in retail, this is a really good stat from Internet Retailer where if somebody watches a video product, or a video demonstration of a product, they're 85 percent more likely to buy something. That's a good driver for this sort of technology," Regli noted.

She also noted that video ads are growing at a fast rate, and cited Cisco showing that video already dominates mobile video.

"Video ads: the fastest-growing category of online advertising. Last year, video of course, growing, per Cisco, to 66 percent of mobile data traffic," Regli said.

Video even dominates on game consoles.

"Xbox users…spend more time watching video than playing games, which is very interesting," Regli added. "So if you're looking for statistics that you need, there's a lot out there that you can use to help justify this."

When looking for a video platform, however, people shouldn't limit themselves to hosts calling themselves an OVP. That's because the term has fallen out of style with many companies that offer video hosting. Companies are outgrowing the term.

"I noticed that the ones that have very broad functional capabilities…they don't even like to be called OVPs," Regli said. "I was actually talking this morning with the CEO of Qumu…and they don't like being called an OVP, because it's too limiting."

Video hosts are now adding services such as video editing, she said, which isn't a traditional OVP feature.

For more on choosing a video platform, watch the full presentation below.

Video hosting image via Shutterstock.

Troy Dreier's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net