Be a Webcaster Without Becoming a Webmaster

Camcorders are everywhere as a result of their point-and-shoot simplicity, but sharing video over the Internet is anything but simple, preventing most consumers and small businesses from maximizing the use of this powerful medium. Digital Spielberg wanna-bes take heart: Two Web sites, POPcast.com and SpotLife.com, make broadcasting video on the Internet easy. POPcast offers support for a range of digital video formats, though it currently lacks support for live broadcasts. Using the free, download- able P0Pcaster applet, you can encode AVI, MPEG-i, QuickTime, and WAV files with simple controls to adjust resolution and bandwidth for your target audience. After you encode the files, the program logs onto the P0Pcast site and uploads your file.

Alternatively, you can use third-party tools to encode into Windows Media Technologies ASF format and upload files directly to the site. Once your videos are uploaded, you can keep them private or add them to one of nine public channels. You can easily link videos to a separate Web site, e-mail links to target viewers, or consolidate multiple videos into albums for sequenced viewing, which requires Microsoft’s Windows Media Player. A free account includes 10MB of storage, which POPcast funds with short advertising videos shown at the beginning and end of your clips. POPcast offers fee-based options if you want advertisement-free videos at higher bandwidths.

In contrast with POPcast’s broad compatibility, you need a Logitech QuickCam to publish files to SpotLife. The benefit is seamless integration with the polished, user-friendly Quick- Cam software, enabling virtually any user to broadcast live audio or video and create multimedia albums. In use, SpotLife is an alternative publishing mechanism within the QuickCam software, with all log-ons, uploading, and page creation handled transparently. Once the files are uploaded to the site, you can password-protect your content or make it freely available on any of 14 SpotLife channels for viewing by anyone with the Real G2 Player. SpotLife’s free service includes 15MB of storage and 240 live streaming minutes per month, with a maximum audience of 25 simultaneous viewers.

As a destination site, we preferred SpotLife, where the real-time, unedited nature of the QuickCam broadcasts spawned “Candid Camera-like spontaneity. Both sites get the job done for casual publishing, though POPcast has a polished, professional feel and fee-based programs that will appeal to many small businesses.