If you consume or deliver online content, then you’re fully aware of the prevalence of online video, and the ever-increasing importance of the medium for content delivery for online business.
In case you’re still unclear on whether you should be using online video in your content creation, then take a look at this article for some great insights on how much video use has grown: 101 Online Video Stats to Make Your Eyes Glaze Over
As an online business manager, I’m intensely interested in options for my clients to deliver their online video content. There are a few great tools and systems out there that I’ve tried or researched, but for the purpose of this post, I’ve chosen the one I like most for Crystal’s Favorite Things:
Amazon S3 & EZS3 for Online Video Hosting & Delivery
Using EZS3 for organizing media files and for player creation (all media types) makes my life easy because I can do it all from one place, and I haven’t found any other combined service that is more cost effective or as flexible.
The EZS3 portion of this system is the most costly, but by using your own Amazon S3 and Cloudfront accounts, you remove the overhead fee that other all in one solutions add to the file hosting and streaming. The reliability, security and cost of Amazon S3 and Cloudfront simply cannot be beat.
How it works:
After logging in to the EZS3 panel, I can upload my files to Amazon S3 (at account creation, you need to set up the connection between EZS3 and your S3 Buckets). Then, I browse to the appropriate folder and select the file I want to share, set up a player and grab the embed code, or copy the download link I need to share the video/audio/PDF, etc. I never have to log into any system or service other than EZS3 on a regular basis.
The actual processes are a bit more involved, but here’s a quick list of my favorite features:
- Bulk Player Creation- This saves me an immense amount of time when setting up a standardized player to be reused for different files.For example: When setting up a new training program at International Freelancers Academy, the files are uploaded to specific folder I’ve created for the program in EZS3. Once all files are up and we’re ready to embed the video or audio files onto the website, I can create a custom player, then choose which files to associate with the player. The output bulk creates the player embed codes for each file, and all I (or my VA) need to do is paste that code into the appropriate section on our website.
- Multiple File Types – There are player templates for almost every file type that I could possibly need, including multiple video file types: f4v, flv, mov, mp4, Camtasia Studio and flash as well as embeds for PDFs, spreadsheets and text documents.
- Built in Google Analytics & Tracking Stats – I can encode each video player with a unique code for tracking in Google Analytics and in the Tracking Stats tab of the EZS3 admin panel.
- Accessibility – The EZS3 panel is more familiar to the average user than Amazon. One complaint I;ve heard from people is that they find Amazon S3 too complicated to use. This fixes that, and makes is easy to do everything you need to upload, organize, manage and deliver online media all from one place.
Gripes
One drawback to starting a new EZS3 account is that they have recently done away with the option to pay on a monthly basis – new and existing customers now need to pay annually or stop using the service. This is a mistake, in my opinion. Business owners want and need the option to try a service on a monthly basis before committing to paying for an entire year’s worth of service. Further, forcing existing customers to switch from monthly to annual payments (without much warning) doesn’t do much for customer relations.
Another drawback is the price of the add-on modules that offer the functionality that most of my clients want and need from their video delivery service. Charging extra for the “Premium Features” is a common practice, but the prices for these services demanded of existing paying customers are again, in my opinion, a bit harsh.
So there you have my favorite media hosting and sharing system. It’s not perfect, but no system is! What may be perfect for one business just won’t work for the next, so you need to make sure you have done your research for the system that matches your needs best and then continue to evaluate the options out there on a regular basis.
What do you use to host and share video content in your business?
My clients know me as the business & operations manager – basically, I’m the one that takes your ideas, strategies and plans and makes sure they are executed by your team from start to finish.. I’m the “Get It Done” Canuck.
