Video Site Analysis - YouTube, eBaum's World, and JibJab.

It's pretty much a given fact that if a video exists on the internet anywhere, it's made its way to YouTube. Even old flash videos (like, 2000 old. Ancient, in internet terms) that existed long before YouTube ever did have somehow found their way to this vast repository of internet history.

Utilizing a unique .FLV video container, it allows for the upload of video files in a high-efficiency, modern video codec, with a Flash frontend ensuring excellent cross-platform compatibility with no compatibility concerns for the end user. Its wild success is widely attributed to simplicity and universality of use, undoubtedly lending to its immense amount of sophisticated, artistic material.

On a vein connecting to our previous unit, YouTube also contains a number of social networking features, consolidating all of one's video creations on a profile page, as well as providing for video commenting, and "video responses".

The next site is more than a simple video hosting site, but it has a somewhat dubious reputation about it. eBaum's World has been involved in a number of disputes between online communities, one notably being YTMND. Eric Bauman, owner of eBaum's World, has been accused of stealing original materials from other sites on the internet, slapping an eBaum's World watermark on, and hosting it on his own site, thus directly profiting from others' work. This then prompted a backlash from a number of online communities. Despite its dubious nature, eBaum's World continues to be extremely popular, most likely frequented by those who aren't aware of the controversy surrounding the site. It contains a variety of materials, including viral images and games as well as video content. It features very few networking features, limited mainly to commenting on posted items.

JibJab is an entirely different type of site altogether. Responsible for a number of wildly famous political Flash videos, they themselves strive to remain politically neutral in an attempt to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. While their videos are purely Flash in nature, they too have found their way to YouTube.

Naturally, due to the videos' political basis, they always see a surge in popularity around election time. JibJab does not merely limit itself to political videos anymore, though, it's undeniable that it's what made them famous.

Though all these sites do contain videos, they're all extremely different in nature. You've got YouTube, for content creators, eBaum's World, for content consumers, and JibJab, for those of us who want a lighthearted, fun look at the current political atmosphere.