More Hosting Choices

While Blogger and Ourmedia make it easy to create blogs and post videos, there are other free services. And if you don't mind spending money for a Web hosting service and software, you can even set up your own domain (yet another term for Web address or URL), which lets you choose from a variety of blogging packages and serve up your blog postings and videos in one place.

Free Video Hosting

There are several free video hosting services as well. Blip.tv, at http://blip.tv, is designed specifically for videoblogging and has some special features not available anywhere else (Figure 7.27). Not only can you upload and host your video on Blip.tv, but you can also have the service automatically post a video onto your blog and send it to The Archive, which is a big time-saver.

Figure 7.27. The Upload Video page on Blip.tv is set up to act like you're creating a post on your blog, only Blip will host your video and allow you to automatically post it to your blog at the same time. Make sure you add your Blog info into the Share with Others section of your Blip Dashboard and make sure to click the Cross Post button.

Do Not Overlook the Terms Of Use

Many people never bother to read the terms of use (also called terms of service) posted on Web sites. But when your creative work is involved, it's a good idea to know what you're agreeing to when you sign up for a hosting service of any kind. Pay particular attention to sections that spell out the rights you are granting to the service. Ourmedia, for example, doesn't require you to assign it any rights. Blip.tv, on the other hand, requires that you give it a non-exclusive license to do anything it wants with your material, as long as it is a noncommercial use

Other services aren't satisfied with having the noncommercial right to your work. Their terms of service use phrases such as "otherwise exploit the User Submissions,""reserves the right to display advertisements in connection with any display of Your Authorized Content,""commercially exploit the User's Videos," and "shall have the right to retain and use any such Information in current or future products or services, without further compensation to you."

You must agree to a site's terms of use when you create an account. Read the terms carefully. If you don't agree with them, find another hosting service. But don't relax entirely. Here's why: Hosting services reserve the right to change their terms of use at any time by simply posting the changes online. Don't expect to get a notice if they decide to grab even more rights. So check their terms of service early and often.

Google Video (http://video.google.com), Daily Motion (http://www.dailymotion.com), and YouTube (http://youtube.com), are popular video hosting sites that we can't recommend for videobloggers. One of the reasons is that they distribute your videos in the Flash video format. That's good for viewing on your vlog, but it doesn't work for friends or family who subscribe to vlogs and download videos with a video aggregator like FireAnt.

Taking Control

For the ultimate in blog control and customization, you can register your own Web domain and purchase a Web hosting service to host your Web site for less than $10 per month. This option gives you the greatest control over your videoblog because you can use any blog software you like and serve up lots of videos.

Many videobloggers we know choose Dreamhost (http://dreamhost.com) and 1&1 (http://1and1.com) for Web hosting services and WordPress (http://wordpress.org) and Movable Type (www.sixapart.com/movabletype) software for creating blogs. That doesn't mean establishing your own Web site is easy. Setting up a hosting account and installing blog software can be pretty tricky. Luckily, you can get the flexibility of having your own Web site without the headache of software installation by choosing a hosting provider that does the work for you. Yahoo, for example, supports both WordPress and Movable Type fans. Find WordPress hosting partners at http://wordpress.org/hosting and Movable Type hosting partners at www.sixapart.com/movabletype/hosting.

If even that sounds like too much work, consider an all-in-one service with nothing to install and an easy-to-use Web interface from Six Apart, the company behind Movable Type. The service is called Typepad (http://typepad.com) and it's easier to manage than the do-it-yourself offerings above. Even so, you get video hosting capabilities and customization features for as little as $4.95 per month. If you don't need such features, the free services we've covered in this chapter will do just fine.