Last week I was lucky enough to be interviewed by the blog **[eBay, eCommerce, Life](http://www.trevorginn.com/interview-with-jamie-parkins-from-vzaar/)** where I gave my views on the future of videos for selling online and how vzaar will fits in to the industry picture. You can [read the interview here](http://www.trevorginn.com/interview-with-jamie-parkins-from-vzaar/).
The rather excellent eBay, eCommerce, Life is written by eBay stalwart Trevor Ginn. As well as blogging, Trevor runs an [eCommerce consultancy](http://www.vendlab.com) and also an [online baby shop](http://www.hellobabydirect.co.uk).

After reading an interesting post, about the recent news of YouTube reaching 100M viewers, from [The Video Commerce Consortium blog](http://video-commerce.org/2009/youtube-tops-100mm-viewers-in-january-so-what/), I decided to echo some of our views on the topic of online video, as it pertains to ecommerce. It’s also a good opportunity for me to compare our service with that of YouTube when using video for ecommerce. YouTube are the forefathers of online video and have paved the way for other online video hosting services such as ourselves. It’s hard to believe they are only 3 1/2 years old. It feels like they’ve been around for ages. Let me first though, before I provide the differences, say that we are technically similar. We both encode most video formats to flash and we both host and deliver video content on the internet.

The core difference is rooted in our business models. YouTube don’t charge their users to use the service and at vzaar we do. Remember though, nothing is ever really free.
[vzaar's](http://vzaar.com) founding principle is to provide ecommerce merchants with a service that enables them to use video to merchandise their product or service. We are not a destination site for people to come and watch video, we are a tool for businesses to use to power video on their site.
vzaar users own their video and their video player. They have control over who sees it and where its published. They also have an unbranded video player so it looks smart and a seamless part of their site. We have some other neat features but in the interest of keeping this succinct I won’t digress.
The principle behind YouTube is sharing video and as I said before the difference between vzaar and [YouTube](http://youtube.com) is the business model. YouTube sell advertising space on their site and video player, so viewers will be exposed to anything YouTube decide to display and the “owner” of that video has no control. Not ideal if you are selling let’s say a vacuum cleaner from Hoover and YouTube sell advertising to Dyson the viewer will be exposed to both products. One which is yours and the other which isn’t.
YouTube don’t charge their users for the service and instead charge advertisers which means they need to keep driving traffic to their site keeping the traffic up to warrant the ad spend. They are a destination site, a video sharing site. As a result YouTube users don’t actually own the video player or have control over what is published in that player. So if you have a video that you want to share with the world then YouTube is perfect. If on the other hand you want to embed a video into your business website then think again. For me this is the clincher: ownership and control. When using video to aid in the sale of a product or service that video in itself is an advert and the lasting impression should be of that product or service not someone else’s. To that point let me quote a piece from the blog I for mentioned as it hits the nail on the head for me.
*”YouTube isn’t thinking of e-commerce in the way you or I might. They’re thinking of advertising….. How excited are you about having your video running with a competitor’s text ad overlaid on top?”*
We love YouTube but if I would not embed YouTube videos on my business site simply because that’s not what its designed for. It’s the wrong tool for that job.

Last night team vzaar popped along to the Business Centre at the rather wonderful [British Library](http://www.bl.uk/bipc/index.html#) to attend for the secone time a [3Cs](http://www.3cscommunity.com/) meeting. Last time, we were presenting, so it was nice to sit back and relax this time round as three more entrepreneurs shared with us their business stories.
The mission of the 3Cs Community is to *create an environment for entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs to become successful and to grow* and so each month at 3Cs members’ meetings, three budding start ups are given the chance to make presentations to the audience. It allows them to test-run the “pitches” that they will make to potential investors and partners and it acts as an invitation to those in the audience who can help, to step forward and offer that help. In other words, free advice and support. Valuable stuff in today’s environment.



As I mentioned, vzaar were lucky enough to be invited to present at the last event in January of this year. Whilst we’ve done several investment meetings to date, this was the first that was more of a one to many style (think Dragons Den if you must) and I have to say its a great opportunity to refine how you pitch your business successfully and succinctly. Given a strict 15 minutes, the onus is on clear, easy to digest information and I think where possible a full, but quick product demonstration.
When it comes to online technologies you’re always entering the lap of the gods when it comes to live demos but last month they were smiling on vzaar and we were able to demonstrate in under two minutes how quick and easy it is to shoot, upload and stream video. On the night, I think that made a real difference, as people can quickly get what you are about. More than that though is the value in being heard, in having the chance to bounce ideas off experienced investors and businessmen and in generating new and enthused interest in what you do. You can’t put a value on that.
The two Colins that run this fun and engaging of evenings are very quick to drag you along to the pub which is where, as you’d expect, the real networking begins and so if you are interested the next 3Cs meeting is planned for the 20th May 2009.