There are lots of great streaming services out there. Think of the likes of YouTube and Vimeo. These days, these sort of public video hosts are blocked for security reasons and can’t be accessed from a business computer, laptop or tablet etc.
Some businesses prohibited access to these sites well before there was a need for business related video and, given the changing business needs, are now quite happy to open up those channels – strictly for business purposes of course. If this is where your business or organisation is at then you’ll need to speak to your IT department to allow access to those sites. Often, it’s just a case of whitelisting the URL and alerting your IT department to the fact that a content provider uses these places to house some or all of their materials.
Remember though that YouTube, Vimeo and the like are not the only video hosts around and so it’s not unreasonable to ask your Supplier if their videos could be hosted on an alternative platform that is acceptable to your business. Sites that spring to mind whilst writing are Amazon, Wistia and Vzaar as all of these offer video hosting that deliver only the content you want. In other words, your staff will not be spending their time viewing non-business-related video content.
What’ll be important for you to consider though is where those videos are being served from. For example, you may be a UK business and the video host may be in a location where performance is unreliable. Whilst this is a fact, you shouldn’t get too hung up on this as many reputable video hosts deliver their content from local servers which reduces this problem.
So, in a nutshell, if you want to watch video in your organisation but are unable to because your business has restricted access to the likes of YouTube, Vimeo etc. you don’t have to worry because there are many alternatives that may well be more than acceptable to your organisation.
