Today an email went out to Viddler account holders, stating that the days of new free account signups are over. This is a fascinating move in a world in which people expect most basic services to be free, with upgraded pay accounts available if they need advanced features (the “Freemium” model.) Current free account holders will not be affected.
Viddler has been a smaller player in the video hosting market, competing with Vimeo and YouTube at the top. Viddler has a few high-profile internet stars as users, such as iJustine, but it never really found its niche like Vimeo did (a tool for amateur and independent filmmakers).
The move bucks the trend significantly. A statement from community leader Derek Steen says,
“This decision was made because a good portion of new user sign-ups are spam or businesses wanting to trial our service without using the free business trial (which previously required a credit card, but now don’t).”
Do we now live in a world in which anybody who wants to upload videos to the web already have YouTube accounts? Viddler may be trying to differentiate themselves by obliquely hinting, “Hey, if you want to have a free video account for your garbage, go elsewhere.”
It’s probably not a bad move, if looked at objectively. Of course Viddler has to pay bandwidth and server costs for every single account and video that goes up; if the majority of new accounts are indeed garbage that just ends up costing them money, they’re making a smart move. Closing the doors to free accounts is certainly easier than moderating and fighting battles with every spammer.
The problem is one of perception; if Viddler wants to be considered a premium service, they need to offer premium features. As much as I hate Vimeo (and so do others), I still have to admit that the quality is stellar (when it works without buffering). When we went through that mess with Vimeo, Viddler’s founder Rob Sandie (who is, sadly, no longer with the company) reached out to me personally to help us when Vimeo screwed us. We have used Viddler with great success from that point on, but the lack of HD has really put a damper on our use of the service; most of our most recent videos default to YouTube, because there’s no compelling need for us to pay for Viddler’s service (that might change, as Viddler does offer age-gate video hosting for video game trailers, which is something we need.) To be clear: Viddler does offer HD, but only to paying customers (which we are not).
The end of Freemium
In a world in which many startups go bust because they rode high on features and wow factor but never nailed down a revenue stream, this is an interesting move. It seems like every web service out there has some kind of free account. Whenever a new service launches (be it social media, location-based, file sharing, etc.), most people just assume it’s going to be free for the basics. Viddler is making a bold move here; whether it works remains to be seen. The fact that not many people are on a first-name basis with Viddler says a lot—they definitely need to increase their outreach, PR, and marketing efforts to be seen as a premium player worth investing in.
Articles RSS