Top Ten Video Sharing Websites

Editor's Note: Check out our most recent video sharing survey: Online Video: Show Us the Money. Also, note that the Web Video Cheat Sheet has been updated and can be found right here: http://www.lightreading.com/videoshare.

Among other things, 2006 will be remembered as the year online video really became something you share, not just something you log onto and watch.

Sure, there will always be a place for viral videos that get emailed to dozens of friends and coworkers. I mean, who ever gets tired of watching a cat flush a toilet or seeing a skateboarder render himself infertile?

But the sheer volume of video sharing sites that have come online in the past 18 months suggests that the online video trend won't be confined to something people do to entertain themselves on a coffee break. To wit, hundreds of thousands of consumers are beginning to share video online, and that's having a profound impact on how much bandwidth is consumed and how broadband providers make money.

"HDTV, next-generation gaming, personal video, and digital photography will all contribute to the emergence of a new broadband gold standard of 100 Mbit/s symmetric over the next 12 to 24 months," writes Heavy Reading senior analyst Graham Finnie in his latest report on the fiber-to-the-home market. (See FTTH Hits Mainstream.)

Video sharing: the viral spiral
Bandwidth consumption isn't the only byproduct of the increase in video sharing. Content distribution networks are beefing up, and the companies in that space are thriving as Web-based services make it easy to exchange larger and larger files. (See CacheLogic Builds P2P Content Network and Video Caching Steps Into the Limelight.) Also, service providers like AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) are pairing up with Internet TV companies like Akimbo Systems to make sure they can deliver, not just regular TV channels, but some consumer-generated content as well. (See AT&T, Cisco Elbow Into Akimbo and Will Telcos Want Their Dave.tv?)

Content makers and advertisers are seeking out online video sites as a way to reach younger demographics. (See Google Pushes MTV Video.) Even Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) says it won't be left out. "MSN is currently developing a user-generated/user-submitted video solution that will launch this year," a spokeswoman for Microsoft says. "The solution will integrate with Windows Live Spaces and across MSN.com. Stay tuned!"

The Top Ten
With all that going on, it's definitely worth looking at who stands out in this ridiculously crowded space. Since popular opinion does matter online – where the consumer experience is hugely important – we thought it'd be useful to rank some of the Internet's most popular video sharing sites by how they performed from the point of view of someone wanting to post videos rather than just look at someone else's.

Without further ado, here's our list of the Top Ten Video Sharing Sites

1) Blip.tv
2) VideoEgg
3) Dailymotion
4) YouTube
5) Veoh
6) Google Video
7) Grouper
8) Jumpcut
9) AOL
10) Eyespot

The complete rankings
Here are the video sharing site rankings, in full:

Table 1: Video Sharing Sites: The Rankings

Website	Ease of Use (30 points possible)	File Size, Storage Limitations (30 points possible)	Other Stuff: Format Flexibility, Editing, Distribution, and Privacy Options (40 points possible)	Final Score	Comments
Blip.tv	30	30	35	95	Does everything imaginable with uploaded videos. Doesn't have editing features yet, though.
VideoEgg	30	25	39	94	VideoEgg makes it so easy to push videos to other sites, and the videos look great when they arrive. By far, this was one of the most responsive services we tested.
Dailymotion	30	26	35	91	Responsive site and very easy to use. Distribution options were especially nice, too.
YouTube	27	28	35	90	YouTube is definitely the gold standard of video sharing sites. And, even though the site clutter is excessive and a few features need tweaking, there's definitely a reason why they're the one to beat.
Veoh	27	30	30	87	Is this the P2P dream come true? Veoh's created a very solid, reliable video sharing experience sweetened by the lack of upload size restrictions. Bravo, Veoh!
Google Video	30	25	31	86	Typical Google. Easy on the eyes. Easy to use. Limited distribution options.
Grouper	19	26	40	85	A little confusing at first, but the service has lots and lots of functionality once you download the free software application.
Jumpcut	30	10	40	80	The best online editing tools. Pity about the file size restrictions, though.
AOL	26	25	28	79	The VideoEgg technology makes uploading, trimming, and viewing easy. Distribution options are limited, and one set of embeddable links provided were full of HTML errors.
Eyespot	30	14	34	78	This site has some of the coolest editing features.
Fliqz	30	15	30	75	Very user friendly and family friendly. Sparse sharing options. No editing. But the site was only launched in July, so it's got lots of room to grow.
Guba	20	27	28	75	Another site that's pretty good, but doesn't really stand out in a crowd.
Openvlog	30	20	25	75	Another nice site. "Record" feature allows users with Webcams to make their own video on the spot.
Revver	25	15	35	75	Another nice overall site. Takes a while for video to show up, though.
ManiaTV	30	15	28	73	Tom Green has a ManiaTV show. Why don't you?
ClipShack	25	20	27	72	A nice site that's easy to use.
Motionbox	27	15	30	72	Motionbox offers an exceptional feature that allows you to highlight specific bits of videos and share just the good stuff. Blog support and other distribution options are coming along. This site will definitely climb in the ranks as it matures.
Eefoof.com	25	30	15	70	What was all the hype about?
MySpace	30	15	25	70	Slim sharing options. No video editing. And, as usual, there's a file size limit.
Sharkle	25	20	25	70	It's called Sharkle, but it doesn't sparkle.
Vimeo	30	10	30	70	Another winner in the "ease of use" category. The lack of viral videos on the site is nice, too.
vMix	22	20	25	67	Slideshow tools are nice. But this site's video sharing experience is only a little above average.
Bolt	25	15	25	65	Supports RSS feeds, but other distribution options weren't apparent. Lots of contests that appeal to teens.
DropShots.com	25	10	30	65	Like Phanfare and Fliqz, this one's family friendly and easy to use, but probably more appealing for photo sharing.
GoFish	25	10	30	65	Not a bad starter site. But you should go fish for something better if you're serious about video.
Phanfare	20	25	20	65	This ad-free, clutter-free site was conceived around sharing, archiving, and uploading photos, so the support of video is sort of a bonus for existing members. Not really a place to start if you're serious about video.
Video Webtown	20	30	15	65	We had a tough time uploading and converting a Windows Media file. Otherwise, the site's clunky design might be worth tolerating so long as it continues to offer more storage space than most sharing sites.
VidiLife	5	30	30	65	We could complain about the user interface and the lack of features, but why bother? The annoying Circuit City popup ads on every page will keep users away in droves.
vSocial	25	15	25	65	Sparse and functional, like Google. But ugly, like something a novice would have built.
iFilm	28	15	20	63	This site used to be good for seeing studio content and serious short films. Now it's also a "me too" in the viral video space.
Panjea	26	15	20	61	A Revver-ish site with more community site features.
Atom Films (AddictingClips.com)	25	15	20	60	Supports all the right formats. No decent distribution options. Privacy options unclear.
Photobucket	15	15	30	60	Another photo site with bolted-on video features. Functional, but not impressive.
HomeMovie.com	12	15	30	57	Nice software, but the company's video sharing, distribution options, and pricing model are holdovers from the days of videotape.
Yahoo Video	20	15	22	57	Where's the creativity? Yahoo is just doing a "me too" – and not a very good one, either.
Filecow	30	10	15	55	A fine place to host small files for free.
Streamload's Mediamax	0	30	25	55	We couldn't get Streamload to upload! We've heard raves about the sharing service and registering was dead easy, but uploading wasn't possible – even after rebooting, turning off the firewall, and changing to a different Internet connection. Maybe you'll have better luck.
Metacafe	15	15	20	50	Hard to see why the world needs YouTube and Metacafe. During a test upload the site couldn't recognize the same Windows Media file that 40-something other sites had no trouble accepting.
ZippyVideos	25	5	20	50	Meow. Another copycat site with nothing new to offer.
Lulu TV	15	10	20	45	Maybe instead of paying content creators, they should concentrate on hiring some good Web designers.
Ourmedia	2	30	10	42	What a mess! The folks at Ourmedia are so inclusive they've managed to create a site that's cluttered, slow, and doesn't work – for everyone.
Putfile	20	5	15	40	Viciously viral. YouTube's UK cousin, perhaps?
Castpost	10	10	10	30	The site took forever to load, and our video never did appear. Looks as though they're going through some growing pains.
Yikers	5	0	5	10	You can share videos here, but Yikers is mainly a place for folks who want to watch viral videos without ads.
Pooxi	Incomplete	Incomplete	Incomplete	Incomplete	This is a popular site, but we didn't rank because our ability to read French might've caused them undeserved ratings damage.
Sources: Light Reading and company data

The burning questions
Now that you know who the winners and losers are, let's get into how we arrived at our scores. It all started with the following blogs, which helped generate the list of 45 video sharing Websites that we went on to evaluate, and helped identify the issues that differentiate them:

• Video Site Cheat Sheet
• Video Site Cheat Sheet II

Each site was visited, used, and scored in three main areas that we felt would make the most difference to the largest number of people wanting to post videos for sharing with others:

• Ease of use. Maximum possible score: 30
• File size, storage limitations. Maximum possible score: 30
• "Other stuff" including format flexibility, editing capabilities, distribution networks, and privacy options. Maximum score 40.

The scoring system aims to reflect the likely viewpoint of consumers who are relatively new to video sharing – folks more inclined to start out by just sharing video with family and friends. We also gave lots of consideration to content creators who are using the Internet as a cheap distribution platform. Hence the scoring that goes beyond ease of use to also look at costs, site performance, file size limitations, and distribution options.

The people whose needs we really didn't consider are the compulsive viral video posters looking for an "Internet hit." Chances are that group has found a handful of favorite sites already.

For the reasons behind some of the scores, check out Table 2:

Table 2: Video Sharing Websites: Burning Questions

Website	Does the service offer video editing capability?	What's the file size limit?	How much does it cost?	Can I keep a video private?	Does it require a software download?
AOL	Yes, you can trim the video's length.	From the site: "To keep things manageable, the maximum video length has been set to 5 minutes."	Free	No	No
Atom Films (AddictingClips.com)	No	100 Mbytes. Clips must be 10 minutes long or less.	Free	Yes	No
Blip.tv	No	There's no enforced limit. But the service "strongly recommends" files smaller than 100 Mbytes "for performance purposes."	Free	No	No
Bolt	No	100 Mbytes	Free	Yes	No
Castpost	No	50-Mbyte clip requirement. Unless you ask for special permission.	From the Website: "The current Alpha service is free. But we may try to recover some of our costs through ads."	Yes	No
ClipShack	No	100 Mbytes, but you can upload larger files using a free software app; up to 5 Gbytes of storage	Free	Yes	No
Dailymotion	No	150 Mbytes	Free	Yes	No
DropShots.com	No	The free version is limited to 500 photos and 10 videos. Photos can be any file size and any dimension. Videos can be any file size and up to 2 minutes in length.	Free	Yes	No
Eefoof.com	No	Videos must 200 Mbytes or less in size and 10 minutes or less in length.	Free	No	No
Eyespot	Yes	Max one-time upload limit is seven 50-Mbyte videos	Free	Yes	No
Filecow	No	25 Mbytes	Free	Yes	No
Fliqz	Yes	100 Mbytes	Free	Yes	No
GoFish	No	50 Mbytes	Free	No	No
Google Video	No	None. From the company's user guidelines: "You can upload as many videos to Google Video as you like, without any size or length limitations." WOW! Note: Files over 100 Mbytes require a software app to upload.	Free	No	No
Grouper	Yes	110 Mbytes	Free (for now)	Yes	Yes, for everything except tiny, tiny files.
Guba	No	1.2 Gbytes per upload, but there's no length limit.	Free	Yes	No
HomeMovie.com	Yes	None	Free (share up to 5 hours of video online per month)	Yes	Yes
iFilm	No	100 Mbytes	Free	Yes	No
Jumpcut	Yes	50 Mbytes	Free	Yes	No
Lulu TV	No	32 Mbytes with a free account. 100 Mbytes with a $14.95/month account.	Free, unless you become a Shareholder	Yes	No
ManiaTV	No	100 Mbytes	Free	Yes	No
Streamload's Mediamax	No	The site's free accounts provide 25 Gbytes of free storage for any kind of media files. Free users are also limited to 1 Gbyte of access bandwidth per month.	Free	Yes	No
Metacafe	No	100 Mbytes	Free	Yes	No
Motionbox	No	100 Mbytes	Free	Yes	No
MySpace	No	100 Mbytes	Free	Yes	No
Openvlog	No	Under 5 minutes in length	Free	Yes	No
Ourmedia	No	None mentioned.	Free	Yes	No
Panjea	No	100 Mbytes per file. 250 Mbytes of storage overall.	Free	No	No
Phanfare	No	Phanfare accepts video clips up to 5 minutes in length or 1 Gbyte in size.	$6.95/mo. for unlimited storage	Yes	Yes
Photobucket	No	Free accounts get 1 GByte of space and 10 GBytes of bandwidth per month. Video clips can't exceed 5 minutes each.	Free	Yes	No
Pooxi	No	50 Mbytes	Free	Not sure. The site's primary language is French.	No
Putfile	No	25 Mbytes	Free	No	No
Revver	No	100 Mbytes	Free	Yes	Yes
Sharkle	No	100 Mbytes	Free (up to 1 Gbyte of storage)	Yes	No
Veoh	No	None. Movies can be any length and as high quality as you like.	Free	Yes	Yes
Video Webtown	No	30 Gbytes of disk space and 30 Gbytes of bandwidth per user	Free	Yes	No
VideoEgg	Yes. Same as with AOL – if a video is too long, you can use a preview player to trim its length and erase sections you don't want.	Videos must be kept to less than 5 minutes long. From the site: "While there's no technical limit to the length of video the Publisher can post, long videos are expensive to store and stream."	Free (for now)	Yes	Yes. The VideoEgg publisher is required, but it's just a tiny Web browser plug-in and installs in a minute.
vidiLife	No	No limit	Free	Yes	No
Vimeo	No	30 Mbytes a week	Free	No	No
vMix	Yes (For slideshows only)	200 Mbytes	Free	Yes	No
vSocial	No	100 Mbytes	Free	No	No
Yahoo Video	No	100 Mbytes	Free	No	No
Yikers	No	Under 10 Mbytes	$4.98/mo.	No	No
YouTube	No	None. From the site's FAQ: "Most videos on YouTube are under five minutes long. There is no specific length limit, but longer videos require more compression to fit in the 100MB size limit, and the quality will go down as the length of the video goes up."	Free	Yes	No
ZippyVideos	No	Under 10 Mbytes without registration. Up to 20 Mbytes with user registration.	Free	Yes	No
Sources: Light Reading and company data

• Video editing capabilities
• File size limit
• How much it costs
• Whether videos can be kept private
• Whether a software download is necessary

The fine print
One final thing we didn't grade, but users should watch out for, are the terms of use. Most free video sharing services, with few exceptions, grant themselves a license to monetize and advertise your uploaded content any way they can. And very few, if any, of the bucks those sites may make off of your stuff will ever reach your bank account.

Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO), for instance, grants itself the right to use your videos "for advertising, promotional or commercial purposes, including without limitation, the right to publicly display, perform, reproduce and distribute Your Video Content in any media format or medium and through any media channels."

And Yahoo's terms are pretty typical. Another way to think of it: If you upload a certifiable mainstream hit, they'll make bank on the motion picture rights and DVD sales – not you. So there. You've been warned. Be careful.

Copping some traffic
So now we've covered our methodology, here are some final bits of information we picked up along the way that, while not critical to our rankings, do shed some light on the overall growth of the online video sharing market.

One item of interest: Not all the sites that stand out, performed well, and flourished in the rankings have managed to attract a massive online audience. Interestingly, only a few in our Top Ten List have what could be considered remarkable traffic numbers, but that's likely to change, considering how relatively new some of these video sharing services are:

Table 3: By the Numbers: Light Reading's Top 10 Video Sharing Sites

Light Reading Rank	Site	Unique Audience	Time Spent Per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1	Blip.tv	**	**
2	VideoEgg	**	**
3	Dailymotion *	515,000	0:06:25
4	YouTube	30,541,000	0:26:07
5	Veoh	1,011,000	0:03:21
6	Google Video	9,348,000	0:06:16
7	Grouper *	630,000	0:02:06
8	Jumpcut	**	**
9	AOL	**	**
10	Eyespot	**	**
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings – U.S. Home and Work Audience, July 2006 * Note: Because the audience measured for these Websites is smaller than the standard sample size, the projected audience figures for these sites may vary greatly from month to month. ** These Websites have insufficient sample sizes for reliable projection of audience size.

Finally, while we're focusing here on video sharing services, we thought it might also be interesting to see what online video sites are most popular in the U.S. and abroad. Relatively few sites have managed to pull off becoming both an entertainment destination and a user-friendly hub for video distribution:

Table 4: Top US Online Video Sites, Week Ending August 5, 2006

U.S. Rank	Name	Domain	Market Share of Visits
1	YouTube	www.youtube.com	47.70%
2	MySpace Videos	vids.myspace.com	24.81%
3	Yahoo! Video Search	video.search.yahoo.com	6.85%
4	MSN Video Search	video.msn.com	6.14%
5	Google Video	video.google.com	4.52%
6	AOL Media	us.video.aol.com	4.37%
7	iFilm	www.ifilm.com	1.74%
8	MetaCafe	www.metacafe.com	1.53%
9	vMix	www.vmix.com	0.45%
10	Daily Motion	www.dailymotion.com	0.37%
Source: Hitwise Data based on Market Share of Visits, which is the percentage of all traffic to a particular Website.

Table 5: Top UK Online Video Sites, Week Ending August 5, 2006

UK Rank	Name	Domain	Market Share of Visits
1	YouTube	www.youtube.com	65.04%
2	Google Video	video.google.com	7.73%
3	MySpace Videos	vids.myspace.com	7.40%
4	Google Video UK	video.google.co.uk	6.18%
5	MetaCafe	www.metacafe.com	3.26%
6	Yahoo! Video Search	video.search.yahoo.com	2.36%
7	AddictingClips	www.addictingclips.com	2.14%
8	AOL Media	us.video.aol.com	1.85%
9	Break.com	www.break.com	1.40%
10	Singingfish	www.singingfish.com	1.35%
Source: Hitwise Data based on Market Share of Visits, which is the percentage of all traffic to a particular Website.

— Phil Harvey, News Editor, Light Reading

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