5 ms·

Vidyard’s (YC S11) video service just one-upped every competitor

133 points by michaelrlitt 15y ago

CosmicShadow 15y ago
Waterloo and Velocity strikes again, these guys are going to be the next big thing! Congrats!
fraserharris 15y ago
Congratulations Mike, Ed, & Devon! Great product & all-star investors!
il 15y ago
Congrats guys. Love the product. Using a Vidyard video on our landing pages has significantly increased conversions.
- michaelrlitt 15y ago
  Glad to hear - reach out anytime if you have questions!
mminer 15y ago
Well deserved, the product is great and the team kicks ass.
aboyeji 15y ago
so cool!
robee 15y ago
You guys are killing it! Making Waterloo proud.
80hours 15y ago
Very professional website, this service is clearly needed. BUT I feel youtube could kill them instantly by adding an "ad free"/"no click thru" plan. Maybe they will do that as part of the Google Apps suite?
- devongall 15y ago
  Definitely something we've considered - they tried doing something similar awhile back, but ended up removing the service pretty quickly. It just doesn't fit Google's typical monetization through advertisements.
karamdeep 15y ago
Unbelievable work guys...I can´t wait to see what´s coming next!
evolution 15y ago
Really needed service. This can be extended to use video as landing page where video will say all and also include call to action.
- devongall 15y ago
  Definitely! We've actually got sharing pages built in already for people just wanting to share a video along with a call to action or other content. We've also done some pretty cool things with Unbounce landing pages - there's an article on the video landing page experience here: http://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/case-study-using-video-to-lift-landing-page-conversion-rate-by-100/ http://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/case-study-...
gkoberger 15y ago
I'm all for "good artists copy; great artists steal", however Vidyard has taken it a bit too far: their player is a complete rip off of Vimeo. http://cl.ly/3J1x213B1z1K3t1M3T2Q http://cl.ly/3J1x213B1z1K3t1M3T2Q I know there's more going on behind the scenes with Vidyard, however I hate that the Vidyard player gets credit for being "beautifully done" when Vimeo's top notch designers did all the work.
- thomasgerbe 15y ago
  Yep that's pretty blatant. I could see them re-designing it soon to something that's more uniquely them. That solution was probably just a quick and dirty attempt.
- namank 15y ago
  If it works, it works. Plus the look is not what they are selling, Vidyard's value is in their analytics and thats why they are topping the news pipeline and thats why I doubt they (or their customers) care about being so close to Vimeo. But I do have to question what the article's author meant by 'beautiful'. Maybe that Vidyard's videos (and hence their player) supports way higher resolution than any of these other free sites. That makes sense to me, look at their sample video - its one of the best demo videos I've ever seen.
- michaelrlitt 15y ago
  That's a fair argument - we built the player to match a popular style that our customers were requesting. We've also built 9 other player's from scratch. There's not much you can tweak and re-design - we've done our best to hit the product market fit for what our customers and their viewers want.
- pclark 15y ago
  I don't see the problem with copying this kind of thing - it's better for users if the flash experience is consistent, and how can you possibly improve on the Vimeo player? Is it better if they make a worse one for the sake of being different?
mdasen 15y ago
I see that Vidyard has also increased their pricing. Three months back, Vidyard was offering unlimited videos on their Venti plan (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2913255 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2913255). Today, they're only offering 100 videos and the price has gone up from $50/mo to $249/mo. If this is a tool mostly to be used for short videos, it seems a tad on the expensive side now. If one assumes a file size of 100MB and 100 videos, that's only 10GB costing a couple dollars in storage each month. Even the 101GB of transfer is only around $15. I understand how it would be difficult to offer unlimited video hosting (as I brought up three months ago). As a curiosity (if someone from the team is here), what changed? Assuming the same 100MB file size, that means that Vimeo Pro is offering about 2TB of transfer per month and 50GB of storage (enough for 500 videos) for under $20/mo. In case you're wondering about the math: Vimeo offers 250,000 plays per year which comes out to over 20,000 per month and with 100MB per play you get 2TB in transfer per month. Are you finding that the average video is larger than 100MB? Of course, if the file size is larger, the extra bandwidth used would mean Vidyard would be offering fewer viewings of it. If the video is 500MB, the 101GB of transfer Vidyard offers would only allow 202 people to watch it in that month while Vimeo Pro would allow 20,000 people to watch without overage charges - plus, even at the 500MB file size, the 50GB of storage would still offer space for 100 videos like Vidyard. If I sound critical, I'm sorry. If Vidyard isn't about storing and serving videos as much as it is about real-time analytics and integration with services like YouTube, that's just what I need to hear. I'm genuinely curious.
- michaelrlitt 15y ago
  It's great perspective. To be completely honest - 101GB is loose. Since we leverage RTMP streaming and most viewers don't watch the entire video, we end up serving less bandwidth. We're pretty focused on avoiding commoditization by bandwidth. As you mentioned, we're about integrations, analytics and call to action - significant value adds that vanilla hosting platforms don't and won't provide.
dools 15y ago
I'm always a little surprised when these articles don't mention wistia.com as a Vidyard predecessor and competitor. I guess Chris was right when he said it's really hard to get people to notice you[1]! [1] http://savagethoughts.com/post/1591677111/making-ideas-work http://savagethoughts.com/post/1591677111/making-ideas-work
jakobe 15y ago
On my Macbook, no Flash installed, the video plays nicely (via HTML5 I suppose), until I hit pause. The the play button stops working.
Vaismania 15y ago
Congrats guys!

133 points by michaelrlitt 15y ago

CosmicShadow 15y ago

Waterloo and Velocity strikes again, these guys are going to be the next big thing! Congrats!

fraserharris 15y ago

Congratulations Mike, Ed, & Devon! Great product & all-star investors!

il 15y ago

Congrats guys. Love the product. Using a Vidyard video on our landing pages has significantly increased conversions.

michaelrlitt 15y ago
Glad to hear - reach out anytime if you have questions!

mminer 15y ago

Well deserved, the product is great and the team kicks ass.

aboyeji 15y ago

so cool!

robee 15y ago

You guys are killing it! Making Waterloo proud.

80hours 15y ago

Very professional website, this service is clearly needed. BUT I feel youtube could kill them instantly by adding an "ad free"/"no click thru" plan. Maybe they will do that as part of the Google Apps suite?

devongall 15y ago
Definitely something we've considered - they tried doing something similar awhile back, but ended up removing the service pretty quickly. It just doesn't fit Google's typical monetization through advertisements.

karamdeep 15y ago

Unbelievable work guys...I can´t wait to see what´s coming next!

evolution 15y ago

Really needed service. This can be extended to use video as landing page where video will say all and also include call to action.

devongall 15y ago
Definitely! We've actually got sharing pages built in already for people just wanting to share a video along with a call to action or other content. We've also done some pretty cool things with Unbounce landing pages - there's an article on the video landing page experience here: http://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/case-study-using-video-to-lift-landing-page-conversion-rate-by-100/ http://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/case-study-...

gkoberger 15y ago

I'm all for "good artists copy; great artists steal", however Vidyard has taken it a bit too far: their player is a complete rip off of Vimeo. http://cl.ly/3J1x213B1z1K3t1M3T2Q http://cl.ly/3J1x213B1z1K3t1M3T2Q I know there's more going on behind the scenes with Vidyard, however I hate that the Vidyard player gets credit for being "beautifully done" when Vimeo's top notch designers did all the work.

thomasgerbe 15y ago
Yep that's pretty blatant. I could see them re-designing it soon to something that's more uniquely them. That solution was probably just a quick and dirty attempt.
namank 15y ago
If it works, it works. Plus the look is not what they are selling, Vidyard's value is in their analytics and thats why they are topping the news pipeline and thats why I doubt they (or their customers) care about being so close to Vimeo. But I do have to question what the article's author meant by 'beautiful'. Maybe that Vidyard's videos (and hence their player) supports way higher resolution than any of these other free sites. That makes sense to me, look at their sample video - its one of the best demo videos I've ever seen.
michaelrlitt 15y ago
That's a fair argument - we built the player to match a popular style that our customers were requesting. We've also built 9 other player's from scratch. There's not much you can tweak and re-design - we've done our best to hit the product market fit for what our customers and their viewers want.
pclark 15y ago
I don't see the problem with copying this kind of thing - it's better for users if the flash experience is consistent, and how can you possibly improve on the Vimeo player? Is it better if they make a worse one for the sake of being different?

mdasen 15y ago

I see that Vidyard has also increased their pricing. Three months back, Vidyard was offering unlimited videos on their Venti plan (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2913255 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2913255). Today, they're only offering 100 videos and the price has gone up from $50/mo to $249/mo. If this is a tool mostly to be used for short videos, it seems a tad on the expensive side now. If one assumes a file size of 100MB and 100 videos, that's only 10GB costing a couple dollars in storage each month. Even the 101GB of transfer is only around $15. I understand how it would be difficult to offer unlimited video hosting (as I brought up three months ago). As a curiosity (if someone from the team is here), what changed? Assuming the same 100MB file size, that means that Vimeo Pro is offering about 2TB of transfer per month and 50GB of storage (enough for 500 videos) for under $20/mo. In case you're wondering about the math: Vimeo offers 250,000 plays per year which comes out to over 20,000 per month and with 100MB per play you get 2TB in transfer per month. Are you finding that the average video is larger than 100MB? Of course, if the file size is larger, the extra bandwidth used would mean Vidyard would be offering fewer viewings of it. If the video is 500MB, the 101GB of transfer Vidyard offers would only allow 202 people to watch it in that month while Vimeo Pro would allow 20,000 people to watch without overage charges - plus, even at the 500MB file size, the 50GB of storage would still offer space for 100 videos like Vidyard. If I sound critical, I'm sorry. If Vidyard isn't about storing and serving videos as much as it is about real-time analytics and integration with services like YouTube, that's just what I need to hear. I'm genuinely curious.

michaelrlitt 15y ago
It's great perspective. To be completely honest - 101GB is loose. Since we leverage RTMP streaming and most viewers don't watch the entire video, we end up serving less bandwidth. We're pretty focused on avoiding commoditization by bandwidth. As you mentioned, we're about integrations, analytics and call to action - significant value adds that vanilla hosting platforms don't and won't provide.

dools 15y ago

I'm always a little surprised when these articles don't mention wistia.com as a Vidyard predecessor and competitor. I guess Chris was right when he said it's really hard to get people to notice you[1]! [1] http://savagethoughts.com/post/1591677111/making-ideas-work http://savagethoughts.com/post/1591677111/making-ideas-work

jakobe 15y ago

On my Macbook, no Flash installed, the video plays nicely (via HTML5 I suppose), until I hit pause. The the play button stops working.

Vaismania 15y ago

Congrats guys!