Why not use YouTube?

Some people ask why not just use YouTube for all of our videos, since it is free?

Well, it’s great for some purposes. It continues to dominate search. If you anticipate getting millions of views, it’s hard to compete with free. However a system like ours puts you in control. We don’t add adverts. You can keep visitors on your own site. You can restrict access using enterprise-level features such as Single Sign-On (SAML2). We can build bespoke features. And you can get technical support from a human, not have to delve through forums.

Privacy

You can set our player to not send analytics events so that we don’t record data about your video views.

We don’t have an equivalent public search page where anyone can search for videos uploaded by any of our users. You can still make your videos private if you do want anyone to be able to watch them without authentication. However by making a video authenticated you can ensure it is only seen by chosen viewers (who have either signed in, or presented a valid token made by you).

We support using enterprise-level features like single sign-on (SAML2) to authenticate your viewers, or a JSON Web Token signed with your private key. You then control how long the token is valid for, and under what conditions it can be used.

Customer support

Unless you are paying YouTube millions of dollars in advertising fees, they are unlikely to give you support if you have any questions. We will, and for free.

Branding

The YouTube player has their logo. You can hide it from the control bar, but even with their “modest branding” setting it will still show on pause. And there are limited options to change the colour: they currently only support using red or white. And related videos will always show at the end (which you may not want).

Our platform puts you in control. We don’t add a logo at all. You can choose any colour (though because our icons are white, using a dark shade is strongly recommended). You can choose what buttons are shown. No related videos are shown at the end.

Advertising

YouTube is free to use because they make revenue from advertising. As such, it is in their interest to get viewers to their site where they can then show those adverts.

We have no advertising and so have no interest in taking your viewers away from your site.

If you are interested in adding your own adverts to monetise your content, such as running pre-roll adverts via a VAST ad tag, please get in touch. It is a feature we are exploring.

Generate leads

Both YouTube and our private video platform provide ways to add interactive content. We both offer the ability to add cards which show during your video. We also let you gate your videos, and ask for the viewer’s details (most likely their email address) before they can watch the video.

Comments

If you do want comments on your videos, then YouTube has the advantage here. We don’t currently support public comments on your videos. You would need to add a separate commenting system yourself. However public comments add a risk to your brand. Some can be very negative and a problem unless carefully moderated.

Updated: March 1, 2021