WHY FREE IS NOT ALWAYS FREE

If you select to use a free video streaming service, there are a few things you should know. Over the last 10 years there has been thousands of “free” video streaming services come and go. To stay in business, these services have to make money. There are three ways streaming companies’ makes money, charge for the service, use investors capital (until it runs out) or sell advertising.

Tech Werks charges for its services, allowing Tech Werks clients to build and control their own Video Streaming Network (similar to YouTube or Hulu). Clients can decide what they want to appear on their web site. If they want to sell advertising or link to other sites, they control their viewers experience. The viewer only sees Tech Werks client’s web site and only the client’s videos.

YouTube sells advertising. This has worked well for YouTube, since it is owned by Google, one of the Internet’s largest on-line advertising companies. As your video is being played, advertisements appear over your video distracting the viewer. There are also lists of other videos on the same page as your video. The viewer will see a number of other videos to watch from other publishers, this information ‘overload’ tempts your viewer to leave your video and go watch someone else’s.

UStream had an 11.1 million dollar investment to get it started and it’s business model is to build a large following and then SELL advertising. Currently, UStream sells advertising as static and videos that play before your video. UStream believes people will watch a 30 to 60 second commercial before “your” video is played. UStream also displays other publisher’s videos like YouTube. If you want to publish videos about your dog, kids or funny videos, YouTube and UStream seem to work. But if you are a serious business, education facility or non-profit, do you really want your viewers / clients to sit through a video commercial about someone else’s product? Or to see a list of other companies’ videos, causing a distraction and allowing the viewer to leave your web site. You also have NO control over the content of the other videos and advertising are that is being displayed with your videos. The ability to keep your client focused on your business is limited.

We had a church want to evaluate both Tech Werks and UStream video services. They first used Tech Werks, EZCASTER. They plugged their video camera into the EZCASTER and their Internet connection. With the Touch of one button they were streaming LIVE, with  a ‘WATCH LIVE LINK’ was on their web site.  At the end of their service, they Auto-Published the video and the on-deand video appeared on their web site for those viewers not able to watch ‘live’.

Here is their ‘free’ UStream experience.  The next week, their media person spent several hours, signing up for a free account with UStream and building their web site.  On Sunday, they had three computers, extra monitors and cables strung all over the media room.  Using the media persons Mac, they were streaming LIVE.  Yes, they were streaming LIVE but as I watched about 1 minute of the video it was slow in updating the video frames about one frame a second (normal video is 30 frames a second) and the lip-sync was off.  Now, I suppose if it’s free you are after and don’t really care how your organization is represented, than this is the right tool for you.  After all, quality and keeping a user’s interest can be a secondary requirement for your audience.

Later that day I went back to the church’s web page to watch the On-demand video. The first thing I noticed was on the church’s web page. I could click a button and it showed me other videos to view, not the church’s videos but other predetermined (by UStream) related videos. I don’t think some of the videos were appropriate for a church web site for example: “Martini in the Morning”. Still on the church’s web site, I clicked on the watch button to see the video the church had made. I left the church’s web site and went to the UStream web site. The on-demand video played, but again about 1 frame a second and the lip-sync was about a second off.

There were other videos available to watch so I scrolled down the page and was amazed at the other videos UStream had on the page, one of them was “Porn Church”. If a viewer wants to watch your video and they see other videos on “your” page that are offensive to them, it has cost your establishment more than a few dollars.

It does not matter if you are a small church or a multi-million dollar corporation; you have to ask the questions, “Is free really free? What is the cost to my customers/users for using this product? How will it affect my church/business/reputation? Am I in control of what is presented to my viewers? Is video quality a necessity for promoting my message? Did my web site promote the message my business intended? ” That my fellow professionals is why: Tech Werks EZCASTER - the right way to do business!