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Imgur Launches Video
The online image sharing community Imgur is launching video after years of hosting still images and GIFs on its platform. "This is a monumental shift for our future, and it furthers our commitment to becoming the world's greatest community powered entertainment destination," the company said in its blog post. The Verge reports: Roy Sehgal, Imgur COO, tells The Verge that the company is "breaking the sound barrier to make Imgur an even better community-powered entertainment experience." Videos play everywhere you can use Imgur (on both mobile and desktop), but so far, only iOS users are able to upload them. The feature is expected to come soon to other platforms. Imgur has also told TechCrunch that it plans to add video editing tools in the future. Videos will thankfully have sound off by default but you can click or tap to play the audio. You can search for videos with the hashtag #unmuted. Like GIFs, videos on the Imgur platform are meant to be short and have a limit of 30 seconds. And Imgur is likely going to use the opportunity to insert video ads to help make the service more profitable.
Two guesses:
1) Money: Transcoding, storing, and delivering video is vastly more expensive than static images and most GIFs. A limit of 30 seconds lets them control that some, and it's a restriction they could always lift later (while going the other way - starting with unlimited and then later forcing a 30 second limit - would cause lots of whining from users).
2) Memes: Imgur's whole angle is centered on sharing funny / amazing / shocking / whatever images and short clips via GIFs. It's their brand, that's what people know them for. Letting people upload lectures and TV shows and long home movies doesn't fit with that.
Another reason might be that they don't have to deal with copyright policing to anywhere near the same extent with shorter videos. They don't have to make radical changes to their business model, and they can gain a foothold in the GIF and short vid markets.
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Youtube controls the vast majority of the market, and viewers and content creators alike have been complaining about their recent changes in policies. The question remains whether youtube or another service can improve the situation all around and also make money. In any event, the field is open for competition. I'm curious to see will happen in the next couple of years.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?