To compare three popular video sharing services, Los Angeles Times columnist David Colker shot a one-minute, 17-second clip of his dog Earl. Here’s how Earl and Colker fared with the three services:
Grouper (grouper.com)
– After adding a title to my video, I clicked to upload the clip to this service. Less than five minutes later, it was processed and posted.
– I could have chosen to make the clip available only to people in a group that I had created or to people who were invited to join. But in this case I went public. It can be found by entering the keywords “dog” and “treat.”
– One advantage of Grouper being a file-sharing program is that clips can be downloaded for viewing offline or for sending in an e-mail.
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YouTube (youtube.com)
– The entire uploading procedure took 12 minutes. About 20 minutes later the clip was on the site.
– I could have restricted viewing to people I listed by their e-mail addresses. But I chose to make it available to anyone who came to the site. I used keywords “dog” and “treat.”
– Within two hours of being posted, the clip was viewed 44 times. One user rated it five stars.
Google (video.google.com)
– Google’s service is more oriented toward professionally made clips, a few of which require a payment to view. There are, however, home videos on the service. They are all public–no invitation-only clips are allowed.
– The wait to see whether a clip has been deemed appropriate for the site–no guidelines are given, except that it cannot be pornography or copyrighted material used without permission–is like the process of applying to a film festival. After 12 hours my clip was OKd.
– The Google version, which can be found by searching for “What I Go Through,” features the best sound and image quality of the sharing sites tested.