Creating a video can promote products and services, but only if it attracts viewers. Fortunately, there are many websites and platforms for sharing video. Some are daily destinations with vast audiences. Others are niche sites catering to specific users.
Here is a list of websites and platforms for managing and sharing video. There are hosting services, social networks, entertainment sites, news platforms, archives, and more. Many are free.
Video Sharing Sites
YouTube is easily the leading platform for video sharing, with over 1 billion hours of content watched every day. Alexa ranks YouTube as the second most popular website worldwide. Users upload, view, rate, share, add to playlists, report, comment, and subscribe to other users. YouTube offers a number of resources, including its Academy and Spaces, to support and promote successful creators. YouTube and its creators earn advertising revenue through Google AdSense.
Vimeo is an ad-free platform to host, distribute, and monetize videos. Sell subscriptions, create live pay-per-view events, and offer promotions or free trials. Vimeo features a customizable HTML5 video player to embed anywhere. Grow your audience with custom end screens. Guide viewers with calls-to-action. Interact with video cards and generate leads with email capture. Vimeo’s free account provides 500 MB per week. Premium plans start at $7 per week.
Veoh is a platform that allows users to find and watch established commercial video (film and television), independent productions, and user-generated content. Publishers can customize the presentation of their video, automatically publish via RSS feeds, and organize programming into episodic series or complete channels. Veoh uses both peer-to-peer (for its embeddable player) and Adobe-Flash-based streaming.
Metacafe is an entertainment site to showcase short-form videos from movies, video games, TV, music, and sports. The platform has exclusive, original, and curated premium content. Videos can be up to 10 minutes.
Twitch is a live-streaming platform for gaming and pop culture. Once eligible, broadcasters can become an affiliate to monetize a channel. A subsidiary of Amazon, Twitch has over 2 million streamers and 10 million daily users.
Dailymotion is a platform to discover videos live or on-demand — sports, music festivals, comedy skits, political debates, fashion shows, and gaming live-streams. Dailymotion partners can earn revenue from videos and embeds. Partners can also unlock advanced features, such as analytics tools and a media manager to upload and edit videos and manage live streams (including ad breaks and clip creation). Viewers watch 3.5 billion videos on Dailymotion each month.
Facebook lets users share and discover on-demand video and, via the News Feed, live video. After uploading, edit a video, choose a thumbnail, and add tags to improve its performance. The time limit for a live-video session is 4 hours. Users can also discover and follow shows and videos on Facebook Watch.
Instagram has a variety of video-compatible tools: Instagram Stories, Instagram Live, IGTV, as well as posting videos to your Instagram feed. Video posts are limited to 60 seconds; Stories trims video segments to 15 seconds each. Instagram Live allows live-stream broadcasts of up to 60 minutes. IGTV is Instagram’s app for watching long-form, vertical video from followed Instagram creators. Share a 1-minute preview of your IGTV video to your Instagram feed.
Twitter is a real-time newsfeed that supports video. which plays automatically on the platform. Upload video from your mobile phone or your desktop. You can also broadcast live video with Twitter’s Periscope app. Twitter also has a built-in search to showcase animated GIFs.
Myspace is not the dominant social networking site that it once was. But it still receives approximately 15 million monthly views, primarily from musicians and entertainers who post videos, as well as their blogs, images, and music audio. Maximum storage is 2 GB.
Flickr, the photo platform, allows videos up to 90 seconds.
Periscope is a live-streaming app. Viewers discover popular live-video streams or search for broadcasts by location or topic. Viewers comment in real time and can watch highlights of replays. Broadcasters can publish to the platform or can share instantly to Twitter and other social networks. Periscope’s VIP program rewards creators who share live experiences.
Snapchat is the popular app for sharing photos and videos that disappear within a few seconds after viewing. However, creators can save their videos before sending. Snapchat lets you record videos up to 60 seconds.
Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library of internet sites, online applications, and web content, including 4 million videos. The organization’s mission is “universal access to all knowledge.” The library contains user-generated videos that range from established feature films to daily alternative news. Upload your movie, and set a Creative Commons license as part of the upload process to instruct viewers on its use.
Mixer is a live-streaming platform for gamers. From selecting built-in soundboards and visual elements to four-player co-streams, viewers can interact with their favorite streamers. In just a couple of clicks, start broadcasting on Windows 10 or Xbox One.
Disclose.tv is a site for alternative news. Registered users can add simple text messages, rich-media articles, and videos. Submissions are ranked by the total engagement — e.g., views, shares, comments, votes.
eBaum’s World is a humor website that’s mainly a collection of funny videos and images. The content is submitted primarily by users, who are paid through a point system.
Rumble is a site to post and share videos. It also allows creators and publishers to monetize videos. Storage plans start at $25 per month for 250 GB.
TinyPic is a free, fast, and simple video- and image-hosting site to share your experiences. TinyPic is owned and operated by Photobucket.
Dropshots is a platform to store, edit, and share photos and video. It also features one-click sharing to social networks. The Basic account has a 2-minute video limit. Premium plans start at $4.95 per month.
PeerTube is free, decentralized video hosting network based on open-source software. By watching a video, viewers help the hosting provider to broadcast it.
DaCast is a platform that offers video hosting and live streaming with a wide range of tools and an HTML5 video player to embed on any website. Pricing starts at $19 per month.
Plumi is a free web application to create your own video-sharing site. Plumi is based on Plone, the open source content platform, and produced by EngageMedia in collaboration with Unweb.me, an application provider.
Microsoft Stream is a platform to upload, organize, and share videos. Deliver live or on-demand videos for up to 10,000 viewers in real-time. Stream is part of Office 365, which starts at $8 per user per month.
Brightcove is an enterprise video platform for marketers with tools for hosting, social distribution, content management integrations, and viewership analytics. Pricing starts at $199 per month.
Sources
