So you’re thinking about hosting video blogs, and you need to understand what type of web hosting you need to choose. This is a smart question to ask, as there are some considerations that can both save you money and be much more efficient at the same time. Let’s take a quick look at what some of these concerns are, and how you deal with them.
The first and most important questions you need to ask yourself is what type of video blog (vlog) you will be creating. If you are using video only, then you would be wise to at least take a look at using a dedicated video sharing site, such as YouTube, Revver, HowCast, dailyMotion, Metacafe and any of several hundred more. There is a top tier to these, and the aforementioned, along with perhaps a dozen more get a lot more attention, and have many more bells and whistles available to you to use on the video “channel” you create.
There are several advantages to using these sites. Not only do they make the process of uploading and hosting your videos easy, they are free, and they already have a traffic base; that is, people are coming there every day to view videos. That would not be the case with your own site, at least initially.
There are many things to look at when choosing among these sites as well. What is their file storage limit? What video formats do they support? Which format do they play in? What is the quality of the compression done on a particular site? Who are they appealing to (site demographics)? These and other questions should shape your choice of a video sharing site to host your video blog.
If you intend to use text, photos and other media along with your videos, you should consider using a self-hosted Wordpress blog instead. Wordpress through the use of its plugins, gives you a lot of flexibility when it comes to the utilization of your videos and content in general. The reason I emphasize self-hosted versus a web 2.0 property like Wordpress.com, or Blogger.com, is that you’ll be far more able to control the content, as well as the fact that you own the site, and are not subject to the whims of those sites, who will delete your blog at the first hint of anything they don’t like.
You can easily embed videos on your Wordpress blog, and use them in exactly the same way you would on a video sharing site. Any of the major web hosting providers offer Wordpress as a blogging platform. Make sure that you keep your blog updated to the latest version, and have a handle on the comments placed thereon, as video comments can sometimes bring along epics you’d rather not have shown on your site. Since you are the Sheriff here, it’s your job to police this, not YouTubes.
Web hosting video blogs is a fun and potentially effective way to create a better visitor experience as well as increase your blog’s popularity. Make your choices and start hosting video today!
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