The Web Host Industry Review is the leader among Web hosting directories, pulling away from its competition over the last year or two—which is just about when TheWHIR.com switched to VBOSS for its video hosting needs.

TheWHIR chose VBOSS for the most basic, practical reasons: cost and quality. Candice Rodriguez, director of marketing & business development, did some online browsing and was put off by companies that featured variable costs (which, to her, meant "hidden costs"). VBOSS offers a fixed monthly fee, and, she said, "a lot was included and bundled. And we could customize the solution."

Our community is so Internet-based and so Internet-heavy that face-to-face introductions are needed and wanted, and when that can't happen, video takes that place. They've been really helpful at putting faces to names I the industry, as well as keeping people abreast in a different format on what's happening in the industry.

We feel we have a leadership position, especially since, with our competitors, we are the only one offering videos and interviews in this style.

Sample of WHIR Video

 

Beauty and skin care sites are a dollar a dozen. To stand out, you need a little buzz. KateSomerville.com stands out, with videos on air, on line and, increasingly, on its own site.

So how did the site connect with VBOSS? Buzz. "I found you through an industry who's who," she says Sarabella Gignac, the company's e-comm marketing consultant, "when you won the On Hollywood 100 award. I found you through industry buzz."

"We were looking for a platform that was built with growth in mind," she says. "It was ready to adapt to the speed of video's future. We have a library of video assets, and I need to repurpose and propagate them through social media and other efforts."

"Also," she says, "we want people to lift and share the videos. And VBOSS has the ability to drive the traffic back to the Web site. That's key, key, key."

“Working with VBOSS has been absolutely fantastic. We're using videos in our e-mail newsletters now, and we just had a project where we needed something done very quickly, and they had a turnaround almost overnight. ” “We have about 35 products, and we're looking to having a video for each product.” “One of my main efforts is to reduce the amount of exits; to have a video on the home page that increase the visitor's desire to go back into the site, by offering more demonstrative videos. Since VBOSS, we're able to drive 20% more traffic back into the site” – Sarabella Gignac, E-Commerce Marketing Consultant.

Grandparents.com is not a senior citizens' site. As David Brinker, co-founder and President/COO, notes, the average age an American becomes a grandparent is 47. So his is a family site, with many Boomers on board. That means video can play a major role.

This unique site was created in 2006. From the start, says Brinker, "we wanted to get into the video space without a tremendous investment and infrastructure. We went to one of VBOSS's competitors and it was one disaster after another. What we liked about VBOSS's platform was that it was simple; it was easy to integrate; it allowed us to get video onto Grandparents.com very quickly, and there weren't any hidden fees or agendas. And the team was really flexible to our needs. It's been great; it's nice to have a vendor relationship where the thing works. You can depend on them."

SparkPeople.com is on fire. The free site, which helps people lose weight and adopt healthier lifestyles, has passed the 5 million mark in unique visitors per month, making it the biggest dieting site on the Internet. It's the basis of a best-selling book, The Spark, by CEO Chris Downie, who created the company in 2001. And it gets plentiful media attention, including an article in Fortune that distilled the site: "The Facebook of Dieting."

"It's a combination of an interactive tour, content, and our community," says David Heilmann, COO, with an emphasis on community, by way of members' posts, blogs and, increasingly, homemade videos. SparkPeople itself produces helpful exercise and cooking segments, while members upload personal progress reports and tips to fellow Sparkpeople.

"When you're trying to lose weight or exercise more, you want support from other people," says Heilmann. "That's when having a community is effective. We felt that member-to-member video was a great community tool."

“When we found VBOSS we were looking for something that was easy to implement, and we didn't have to worry about hosting. VBOSS seemed pretty turnkey. And they were big enough to be stable but small enough to be flexible enough to work with us. VBOSS is a great solution for us.” – David Heilmann, COO

ScoutingOhio.com, which connects high school football players in Ohio with colleges and coaches seeking gridiron talent, sounds like a one-man operation. That man is Mark Porter, who identifies himself as the owner "and the guy who answers the phone."

He does most of his business online, matching athletes with football scouts since 2005. Back then, he says, he was using Windows Media Player. “A lot of people couldn't use that player; there were issues here and there. We needed something that was more Flash-driven." He turned to VBOSS in 2008. "It seemed like the better thing to do," he says, "to embed videos and let kids share videos, and be able to put ads in videos. There were a lot of avenues we couldn't take alone."

ScoutingOhio.com is unique among recruiting sites because it doesn't charge student athletes for creating profiles and uploading videos, and focuses on one state. Most of its videos come from football teams, although players (and parents) can upload videos themselves. Porter posts hundreds of highlight videos for coaches (who pay to view premium videos, along with stats and other info, on the best available players).

Back around 2006, video was becoming an attractive new feature for Web sites. But some companies were slow to the game. Design World Online, which provides resources to design engineers, jumped. "We saw our competitors not utilizing it," said Marshall Matheson, DWO's VP New Media. "We saw a lot of closed systems among competitors and business-to-business media sites. YouTube had set the standard of the open site, and we wanted to follow that model."

To embed videos onto its site, on its own branded player, DWO chose VBOSS. "It was really easy to install and get rolling, and the price was competitive," said Matheson. DWO wanted more traffic, to draw more ads. "Now," he said, "we get about 80,000 visits a month, and we've been able to sell sponsorships around the channels, and the revenues associated with our video sites have gone up."

That's pretty good engineering.

“We're extremely satisfied with VBOSS; they've given us the platform to achieve our goals, and their customer service has been outstanding. They've been a great partner.” “We're in the business of providing resources for the OEM machine builder, design engineer and engineering manager, in print and online. Fulfilling that mission is primary. With VBOSS we were able to build up the site, and we've built a whole new set of traffic around the site, with about a 300% year-to-year increase.” “We've had a lot of success from being partners with VBOSS.” – Marshall Matheson, VP New Media

Friendster

Friendster is a top 20 Web property that helped spur the social networking phenomenon. As one of the first to market, it has since become the face of social networking. Friendster came to VBOSS to support its largest Fan Profile, Karen Kong, a Malaysian singer who was releasing her first online concert series to support her new internationally acclaimed album. The promotion included a set of six concert videos to be released in a matter of two weeks for her 120,000+ fans and was promoted to more than 20 million users worldwide. The videos were downloaded more than 190,000 times with a 3.5 percent share rate—without so much as a hiccup in delivery or download.

Testimonial

“When we launched a six-part online concert series for our biggest Friendster Fan Profile, music artist Karen Kong, we evaluated a full range of online video solutions. With over 47 million users worldwide visiting Friendster from over 75 countries, it was important to work with a video solution that could scale and could meet the 24/7 demand of our global user base. Additionally, a customizable, Friendster-branded solution was important to us, and VBOSS gave us ultimate control of the player.”

– Jeff Roberto, Marketing Director

Zorpia

As one of the world's fastest-growing social networks, video is a mission-critical part of our member experience. In selecting a video solution, we spoke to every major provider, evaluating them in terms of ability to support our brand, quality of user experience, ease of integration, and affordability. In every aspect of our evaluation, VBOSS was the clear winner. Implementation was a snap, the customization perfectly reflects our brand, and the user experience is second to none.

Testimonial

“We evaluated a broad range of video solutions before selecting the VBOSS player to power video functionality on our site," said Jeffrey Ng, CEO of Zorpia. "With such a strong, global user base, representation of the Zorpia.com brand is important to us. VBOSS provided us with a fully customizable solution that could be easily integrated into our site. It also proved to be nearly effortless for our users to operate and our current ‘Colette Push Video Contest' is a strong example of why this is important. All Zorpians should be encouraged to participate, no matter how extensive their computer background. Because the VBOSS player simplifies the video publishing process, it allows our users to be truly comfortable with our new promotions and site functionality.”

– Jeffrey Ng, CEO

MyNewPlace

Objective:

MyNewPlace, one of the nation's largest apartment rental websites, sought to increase user engagement and conversion by including video tours for apartment rental listings.

Strategy:

MyNewPlace needed a video provider that could not only offer a custom-branded player for display on-site, but could also easily be integrated into its proprietary back-end system for managing listing information and resources.

Solution:

Using the VBOSS Gold Player, MyNewPlace has a custom-branded video player that allows users to share video tours of apartments they're interested in with friends and family. And by integrating the VBOSS upload API, MyNewPlace was able to neatly upload and manage thousands of videos in its listing database.

Results:

MyNewPlace property video tours that are powered by VBOSS have been a big hit with both users as well as the property managers listing their apartments on the site.

Testimonial

“When we survey our users about what they look for when they're searching for an apartment, the number one response is more property photos and videos. By partnering with VBOSS to add property videos to our site, we responded to that consumer demand, and our users have emphatically responded back: MyNewPlace users now stream more than 100,000 videos/month, and those who watch a property video are more likely to contact that property to set up a time to visit. With property videos, our users are happy, and so are the property managers we work with—we couldn't be more pleased.”

– Mark Moran, VP of Marketing

RE/MAX

HomeRentals.net, one of the premier home rental Web sites, was looking for two things: a way to differentiate itself from other sites in its crowded vertical market, and an alternative to the cost-prohibitive virtual tour that kept some homeowners from posting compelling video clips in their real estate listings. With VBOSS, HomeRentals.net knew instantly that an onsite video solution that made it easy for homeowners to upload their own videos would be the key differentiator. HomeRentals.net then teamed up with Todd Breen, President of a RE/MAX Property Management Affiliate in Boca Raton, FL. They worked with clients who generated their own videos, which were included with the online property listings. The inclusion of video has been a powerful listing and selling tool for the company.

Testimonial

“As a marketing tool to get new listings from homeowners, video is very powerful. It's the sizzle that sells the steak. It has proven useful to us in getting more qualified showings as they already know they're interested in the property. The showings also tend to take far less time, as the tenant is simply there to verify that everything is as they saw in the video. Homeowners wanted their agents to provide this marketing technique to promote their properties, and the agents who offered it were often preferred over the agents who didn't. It's proven to be a powerful listing tool for our company.”

– Todd Breen, Broker/President

PBWorks

Pbwiki, one of the largest providers of free wiki pages, was looking for a video solution for its rapidly growing number of site users. Keeping in line with the company's motto, "Make a free wiki as easily as a peanut butter sandwich," the platform needed to be extremely user friendly. This meant ensuring that uploads were fast, simple to manage, consistent with current user flow, and provided an enhanced viewing experience. From a technical perspective, the platform had to be easy to integrate and could scale based on Pbwiki's explosive growth in membership. The result: instant acceptance and positive user feedback from the first day the new feature was publicly announced.

Testimonial

“VBOSS has been a terrific partner. They helped us develop a video solution for our users that just works. It's clean, simple, and the VBOSS team even matched the video player to our style guide (all of this without any extra work from us). I've been consistently impressed by the VBOSS user experience, both in their product and in the way they've worked with us. Most importantly, our users get the ability to upload crisp video in a snap.”

– Ramit Sethi, Co-founder