Dozens of amateur videos of the tsunami have been making their way across the Net, highlighting the power of such footage and raising the profile of video bloggers. But their popularity has also highlighted a key problem with videoblogging and amateur online video — bandwidth costs….
Dozens of amateur videos of the tsunami have been making their way across the Net, highlighting the power of such footage and raising the profile of video bloggers. But their popularity has also highlighted a key problem with videoblogging and amateur online video — bandwidth costs. (BitTorrent anyone?)
One popular site already mentioned on CyberJournalist.net, WaveofDestruction.org, has more than 25 amateur videos from the tsunami and logged more than 680,000 users from last Wednesday through Sunday.
But individual bloggers have had a tougher time managing the video. After one blogger, Jordan Golson, posted an amateur video (11.5 MB)on his Weblog of an elderly couple overpowered by a wave on Phuket Beach in Thailand, the Drudge Report linked to it, causing Golson’s blog to exceed its bandwidth allotment and his host to shut down his blog. “But offers to help store the files poured in from other bloggers, and Mr. Golson spent the rest of the week shuffling video files between about 20 different computers — or ‘mirror’ sites — that are now sharing the load,” The Wall Street Journal reports.
“Another blogger, known as ‘Pundit Guy,’ wasn’t so lucky; the rush on the tsunami videos on his site cost him $1,000 in additional fees when his service provider charged him for the extra activity bandwidth fees, according to his Web site, www.punditguy.com,” WSJ says.
Of course, there’s money in good videos. Norway’s Dagbladet newspaper tells WSJ once the Phuket clip (which it had gotten from the man who shot it) began circulating on Weblogs and forums “suddenly the networks were calling from Japan, Spain and France and everywhere to buy the video,” within 12 hours he sold rights to CNN, ABC News and others for a total of about $20,000.
