I just served on a panel that presented a session at ASTC in LA yesterday. We covered this very topic and there seemed to be a LOT of interest. So let's talk. There are certain advantages to serving your own video: better quality, no ads, no potential for inappropriate videos adjacent to your own, and you control your own destiny. The downside, as mentioned, is the bandwidth and server maintenance. But the other side to posting video on YouTube and elsewhere is the community aspect. If our mission is to reach new audiences to help further our quest of inspiring a lifelong love of learning, then developing a community on YouTube and everywhere else we can works. One of the concerns raised at our session was: what if YouTube starts sticking ads onto our videos? That is a potential danger, but there are always options. Yahoo also offers such services, so does MetaCafe, Revver, and on and on. Some stick on ads, some don't. If they all start to then I have a feeling someone will start a site that doesn't since that clearly is what those in our area (and many others) desire. Hey...if the ads and porn spam, etc. get to be a problem then I have a feeling ASTC and our friends at NSF and elsewhere could help us all easily collaborate and build our own system. We could then invite others and watch it grow. Such is the nature of such systems.
While these are challenging times for many reasons this is also the Golden Age for communication. At least it is in my mind. We will one day look back at this time in awe. Best advice: start telling your stories any way and everywhere you can. We all have people in our organizations who are passionate about what we do. Point a camera at them and turn them loose. Keep everything SHORT and post it everywhere. Engage as many others as you can. Get them talking about what we do. Be passionate about it. It is infectious. If one thing doesn't work, try another. If you can't find a system that works, then ask some questions here and elsewhere. Chances are good you'll find others who can help build one. We all have MANY great stories to tell about those in our organizations. Get out there and start telling them. If you need help just ask. Stan Orchard Web Publisher Pacific Science Center Seattle www.pacsci.org On Oct 11, 2007, at Thursday, October 11, 2007 - 11:45 AM, Ari Davidow wrote: > A few years ago, even serving audio seemed to want a separate audio > server ( > e.g., real server, apple's quicktime darwin server) and there were > lots of > bandwidth issues. In our current setup, we don't have a lot of > multimedia > content, and are increasingly using Flash for audio (mp3 files; flash > player) as well as flv files for video. For the low use these files > get, we > haven't had bandwidth issues. > > But we're also looking increasingly to using YouTube for video. > Where we > have permission to do so, this means that YouTube is eating the > bandwidth > cost for the people who encounter the video on our site (although, > once they > start watching the video, they are on YouTube's site potentially > earning > YouTube revenue against that cost). Even better, people who > wouldn't think > to look for us, or for content on our site, are encountering our > materials, > and have a pathway back to our site. The numbers are too small for > us to > have a good sense of whether this is the best use of the video (as > opposed > to hosting only on our site), or whether a noticeable percentage of > people > are more aware of us, or our website, but our initial sense is that > everyone > gains from this sort of approach. > > I'm not convinced we want to be in the video serving business. (I am > absolutely certain that we don't want servers in-house either--we > have no > desire to have 24x7 tech support and monitoring, and no other use > for the > skills it would take to have our webservers physically in our > server room, > so clearly we are moving in different philosophical directions from > ya'll. > For the record, we do maintain our own servers, just off-site at a > professional ISP, and we share our webmaster with other clients.) > > ari > > On 10/11/07, Real, Will <RealW at carnegiemuseums.org> wrote: >> >> Our IT staff is concerned about the bandwidth effect caused by >> delivering multimedia content, particularly video, on the museum's >> website. Would folks from museums who have gone thru this care to >> comment on their experiences? I realize it comes down to what the >> content is and how much traffic there is, but we are hoping we can >> extrapolate, in a general way, from the actual before-and-after >> experience of others. >> >> Thanks in advance, >> >> Will Real >> Carnegie Museum of Art >> Pittsburgh PA >> _______________________________________________ >> You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum >> Computer >> Network (http://www.mcn.edu) >> >> To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu >> >> To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: >> http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l >> > _______________________________________________ > You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum > Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) > > To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu > > To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: > http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
