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Almost every new website seems to have an intro video that tells prospective new users about what the site's about and what it does.

What's the best way to host such a video?

I looked into the usual suspects, but each seems to have crippling flaws:

  1. Youtube - Can stick ads into my video, making it look very amateurish
  2. Vimeo - Expressly forbids commercial use
  3. Self-hosting with JWPlayer - Cannot be re-embedded (I think), costs money. In regards to the re-embedding point, Techcrunch recently made the point that they and other news sites about tech love to embed those intro videos into their articles, and sites that have non-embeddable videos are giving up free coverage.

Edit: I'm not talking about the flash intros that must be clicked through to see the site, I'm referring to the optional videos users can click to learn more. Example: Four Square click More Info, Hot Potato click Video Tour on right, etc..

Also, I hate these videos as much as anyone, but recognize that end users love them. I fully intend to have a text and image version as an alternative for people like me that hate videos.

I don't see any consensus among these websites that I visit on the best way to host these videos. I'm hoping that people have recommendations other than the 3 I highlighted above already.

A: 

Just host the file on some CDN (Amazon/Limelight/...) and then just embed it using whatever player you want (JWPlayer, slideshowpro)

webdestroya
+1  A: 

UI Rule #1: The more the user has to click, the worse the design is.

Ari's Corollary: Forcing a user to sit through an intro video counts.

Seriously, don't do this. If you have to, youtube is probably the good route.

Ari Roth