By far Youtube outweighs the competition when it comes to user generated video content on the web. I use Youtube as a video protion device but I used Brightcove.tv to host the videos that I used on my sites. Why? I felt that the player looked nicer and the video looked better. Now brightcove has annnounced that they are pulling the plug on user uploads. On November 27th I received the following email:
Dear Brightcove.TV member,
Beginning December 18, 2007, we plan to end support of direct consumer uploads to Brightcove.TV. As a result, you will not be able to upload new videos to Brightcove.TV after December 17, 2007. But videos you have already uploaded to Brightcove.TV will remain available on the site and through your Brightcove.TV channel. Videos you have embedded in other sites and blogs will also continue to play.
The good news is that if you create a business account, you will still be able to upload video to Brightcove.com and have those videos appear on Brightcove.tv. That is good news. With the Brightcove pro service (I use a free version) you can create a great video player to use on your site (see: Tiffany Miller Mosaics as an example).
When asked by Tech Crunch’s,Erick Schonfeld, Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire why he decided to throw in the towel on Brightcove.TV. His response:
We are not throwing in the towel on Brightcove.TV, we are eliminating its use as an end-user sharing service. Note that the vast majority of programming on Brightcove.TV are professional channels published by media businesses that use our overall platform for their websites and syndication. It will continue to operate as a content showcase of pro publishers using the Brightcove Platform.
He he goes on in this blog post that the eight million monthly unique visitors to Brightcove.TV (as reported by comScore) is “dwarfed by the adoption of our Internet TV platform by media businesses around the world.” He counts 4,000 such media publishers, who collectively attract “over 120 million uniques visitors per month across thousands of websites.” Brightcove.TV was always a sideshow.
Even though Brightcove.TV will continue to operate and showcase videos from Brightcove’s partners, it will no longer accept videos from consumers. I am tempted to put it in the deadpool, but will refrain for now. If it disappears completely, or arises Zombie-like in the future, we will let you know.
Usually, I upload my videos o any and every site I can. I will continue to watch Brightcove to see how this develops.
