iPhone 3G S: YouTube vs. Vimeo

youtube_vs_vimeoThe iPhone 3G S comes already set up to easily share your videos on YouTube, but is that really the best service to share your iPhone videos on?

The videos are compressed and uploaded straight to YouTube from your phone which makes it incredibly convenient. The key step in that process is the video compression that takes place. This allows you to upload much larger videos straight to YouTube than anything you’re allowed to email from your iPhone.

Up until now I’ve mostly stored larger HD video files on my hard drive with a couple redundancy backups and smaller videos that I took with my Canon digital camera I shared on Picasa. Now, with the addition of iPhone videos in the mix I wanted to make the move to a video hosting sites to share my videos.

The bad news for Vimeo users is that sharing files remotely from the iPhone is going to be severely limited by the file size limitations put on attachments. For example, you can only email five photos at the same time. So far it’s been my experience that around one minute seems to be the cutoff point for the length of a video that you can email to Vimeo, or anywhere for that matter. And it doesn’t look like Vimeo is going to be giving the iPhone any love anytime soon.

As of now I haven’t found a video too large to upload to YouTube from the iPhone. I just published a video that was well over three minutes with no problems at all and it did it relatively quickly. It seems as though the 2GB upload limit may very well apply to the iPhone as well. If that’s the case you will have the ability to upload extremely long videos from your iPhone to YouTube.

If you’re looking to instantly publish your 3G S videos and not wait until you can upload from a computer YouTube is hands down the way to go, thanks to the built in compatibility nothing else can even come close.

This is not good news for Vimeo or Posterous for that matter (the latter being what I use to publish nearly all of my mobile content). Qik has an app in beta that will theoretically allow users to upload nearly live video limited only by the amount of space on your phone, although that is pure conjecture on my part. I have an email into the creators of Posterous and Qik to see what they have anything they’d like to add to this conversation.

At the very least I’d like to see an iPhone channel on YouTube to easily view all the mobile videos coming in from around the world. Let’s hear it iPhone 3G S early adopters, what has been your experience with sharing iPhone videos with your readers, friends and family?

Obama Brings Fireside Chats to 21st Century, Will Post Them on YouTube

barackobama-youtubeLast week I posted about President-elect Barack Obama’s flickr site and how I hoped his Presidency would continue to utilize social media platforms on the web.  It looks like I won’t be disappointed.

Today, President-elect Obama will record the weekly Democratic address not just on radio but also on video — a first. The address, typically four minutes long, will be turned into a YouTube video and posted on Obama’s transition site, Change.gov, once the radio address is made public on Saturday morning.

…political observers say President-elect Obama’s innovative, online-fueled campaign will likely evolve into a new level of online communication between the public and the White House–the Internet-era version of President Franklin Roosevelt’s famous “fireside chats” between 1933 and 1944.

Look for a White House YouTube channel to be launched shortly after Obama takes office.  And for all you young folks out there that have never heard of a fireside chat, go get your learn on.

Insomniac Roundup

  • YouTube announced they are starting to sell ads on their search result pages.  That’s a tough sell.  I know after a search for chimpanzee on a segway I’d be hard pressed to decide whether or not to buy the Segway or the chimp.  Monetizing YouTube is going to be tough, YouTubers are wont to be entertained, not marketed to.
  • What happens when one half of one percent of New York babies are born at home with midwives instead of in hospitals?  Why a fancy article in the New York Times of course.  How relevant!  ”Mommy, why does my blow up pool smell like afterbirth?”
  • 10 Mistakes That Could be Killing Your Blog – #1. Passing off Top Ten Lists as Content.  What’s worse than infrequent posting and people writing about infrequent posting?  People writing about the people writing about infrequent posting.  But now I’m now I’m writing about a person who is writing about a person who is writing about…oh fuck it.
  • Help Obama choose what qualities to look for in our Nation’s first CTO.

Military Bans Use of YouTube, MySpace

military_laptop

Sites like YouTube and MySpace have been helping soldiers in Iraq and other places around the world keep in touch with family and friends will no longer be accessible to troops on the DoD network.

The Defense Department will begin blocking access “worldwide” to YouTube, MySpace and 11 other popular Web sites on its computers and networks, according to a memo sent Friday by Gen. B.B. Bell, the U.S. Forces Korea commander.

“This recreational traffic impacts our official DoD network and bandwidth ability, while posing a significant operational security challenge,” the memo said.

This move comes even as the military started using YouTube to fight the battle of public perception.

Iraqi insurgents or their supporters have been posting videos on YouTube at least since last fall. The Army recently began posting videos on YouTube showing soldiers defeating insurgents and befriending Iraqis.

But the new rules mean many military personnel won’t be able to watch those achievements — at least not on military computers.

Now Al Qaeda insurgents are going to have way more MySpace friends than our troops.  How the hell are we supposed to win the hearts and mind of the Iraqis if our troops can’t even put them in their top 12?

The 13 sites included in the ban are YouTube, Metacafe, IFilm, StupidVideos, and FileCabi, the social networking sites MySpace, BlackPlanet and Hi5, music sites Pandora, MTV, and 1.fm, and live365, and the photo-sharing site Photobucket.