One effect of rich media becoming more conventional on the web is increased bandwidth usage. In many cases, the cause comes from the size associated to video files being delivered directly from your web site. We’ve seen bandwidth rise hundreds of times for some of our client’s web sites over the last several years.

The good news is that customers enjoy the rich media experience. The bad news is that it can cost thousands of dollars in overage charges from ISPs. In some cases, it may make sense to use YouTube to offset overage expenses by letting Google do the “heavy lifting” of streaming video content. Here is a simple example:

Embedding YouTube videos on your web page can really save a lot of money on any bandwidth overage charges. Everyone knows digital video files can be enormous and utilizing Google’s network for delivery can be very advantageous since it is fast and it is free. The downside is that YouTube controls the viewer application window and can provide additional videos and advertising that may not align with the messaging of your video.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 29, 2008 at August 29, 2008 and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.