Video comes home ready for work!
Mass market video creation and distribution capabilities
have technically arrived online. Video streamed over the Internet, even
to those viewing it with dial up connections, looks better, and performs
far more smoothly than television did 
in
its first two decades.
Over the last two years the number of companies offering some sort of streaming video solution to small and medium sized businesses and consumers alike have fluctuated almost as wildly as the technologies behind the online video products they are offering. Companies have come and gone overnight, bought out, or made obsolete by the newest version of an operating system or supporting program. Java based or Flash based or proprietary blends can all be found.
How do you begin?
But if you're like most companies and consumers you really don't care
much about the technology beyond simply knowing whether or not it's
manageable. You care about what these products can do, and most importantly,
what they can do for you.
You want to know when, where and how you could profit by using online video in your business. And you want to know if your aunt Harriet will be able to open or easily and quickly view the videos you want to send her. Some of the other questions you asked us in the online video survey we conducted at the beginning of 2005 included:
- What's the difference between chat, conferencing and broadcasting?
- How do you post a video to your website?
- Why should someone use videoemail instead of text?
- Can a regular person make a video that looks like ___________?
- How much does it really cost?
- and the perenial favorite: Who is doing this now and are they successful?
All of these questions and more were addressed when we wrote "Cue the Director: 10 Simple Steps to Online Video Success." Here are all the details, including how to order.
This chart is admittedly biased, but gives you an idea of who is offering online video tools specifically for chat, conferencing, etc. Some of these offerings are in the form of specific hardware you can buy outright. Others are offered through services maintained either online or offline.
If you're looking at using one of the streaming service providers rather than building your own communication serving environment and need more detail on the capabilities of each provider, this chart is a good starting point. Even if the company you're considering isn't listed here, it's list of capabilities should give you what you need to make a fair comparison between the companies knocking on your door..
If you're still stuck deciding when you need to video conference, versus having a video chat, or what messages are right for a video email, you can get some ideas started with these excellent examples of what people are doing with their videos today.
