Video Blogging is bigger then ever. Computers with built in cameras, Flip Video gadgets and even your basic point and click can produce fairly decent footage for your blog. It’s easy to make but there are SO many sharing options?

My Video Hosting History

When I started recording videos for GreenLiteBites WAY back in 2007, I started with YouTube. I mean was there really a choice? YouTube was taking the world by storm and it’s still, by far the most popular video sharing site out there. But it does have its problems. Most notably the 10 minute time limit. There are a few users that have permission to bypass this limit. However, YouTube will no longer grant new users this right.

For this reason alone, I set out to find other ways to host my videos (I talk WAY too much, routinely babbling my way through the first 10 minutes of my videos before I even get started.) At first I attempted to just store the videos on my own server and host them myself (as you can see in my Zucchini Pizza Bites video). BAD idea. For starters the quality is horrible, the process time consuming and the data transfer HUGE.

A few weeks later I discovered Revver. It seemed my prayers have been answered. Here was a video hosting site that didn’t care how long your videos where as long as the file size was under 100MB. Plus they attached advertising for a revenue sharing option. I was in video sharing heaven!

But it only lasted about 6 months. :(

Revver really was awesome but their upload process started taking longer and longer. Videos would sit in queue for days (not acceptable as I blog in "real time") and the site started crashing more and more. They were riddled with technical issues and although I did like to use their service the cons started to out weight the pros. (Note: as I prepared to write this post, I received over 5 errors on the site, I guess they still haven’t ironed out all the kinks yet)

What’s a video bloggin’ girl to do?

I started to research. Looking at other bloggers and the how they did it. I came across Gary Vaynerchuk and his Wine Library TV site (if you don’t know Gary you should… he’s got a pretty good handle on this whole blogging thing.) Gary uses a couple video sites but most notably Viddler.

Viddler intrigued me. It also had no time limits like Revver but it’s file size allowance was 500MB AND they have a comment feature on all videos uploaded. You’re thinking, yeah.. so what. I can comment on almost everything online anymore. What’s the big deal? Well…. not only can you comment on the video itself you can comment at specific points within the video. For example check out my recent Pancake Taste Off!

Notice the little dots on the timeline? Well those are comments left by a viewer at a specific point in time of the video. Go ahead place your mouse over them. Pretty cool, huh?

Besides the benefit of allowing users to contribute thoughts to the video the comment feature has the added benefit of allowing you to add a sort of time marker. I do this in the Q&A videos on Roni’s Weigh. Letting people know when one question ends and another begins. See below…

As of today I’m hosting all my new videos on Viddler. They are fast, the comment feature is beneficial and the quality is perfectly fine for my purposes.

Lessons Learned

• Don’t let the experts tell you which video hosting site is right for you. It all depends on your needs and the needs of your readers. Even though some think viddler’s quality is sub par the comment feature out weighs quality for me and my needs.
• It’s ok if not better to have your videos hosted in multiple locations. Choose the player you like for your blog but upload the videos to multiple sites. The exposure on different video communities can never hurt. I attempt to upload any of my videos that are under 10 minutes on YouTube.
• Advertising on videos may be more trouble then it’s worth if you only get a few hundred views. I was really excited about Revver’s advertsing options at first but after 6 months, 37 videos and about 20,000 views I made a whopping $25 bucks.

Now, there are other video hosting sites out there. This is just a summary of my video hosting experience. Any other vloggers out there like to share theirs? What sites do you use? Are you hosting on more then one?

Links of interest

• Beyond YouTube – The Best Free Online Video Hosting Sites
• Ten video sharing services compared
• YouTube sucks: 4 sites that do video better