Best YouTube Alternative

Though not among the best streaming sites, ZippCast’s video hosting capabilities could challenge the major contestants in the industry while keeping a distinct community and a target audience. Emerging in 2009, its first major highlight was the older YouTube design. Big Google child was on the verge of changes, switching and improving the design constantly, which faced some opposition from the fans who were used to the old layout and did not want any changes. ZippCast appeared to be the consolation for fans who did not want to give up on watching videos and desired the pre-2009 YouTube style.

ZippCast crew knows how to go back from the dead as they have done such thing two times already. First resurrection was completed in 2014, after a shutdown year earlier and the site managed to hit the significant milestones in a pretty short time. 3 million ZippCast searches and 4 million overall views were recorded the same year after the relaunch, which was not even remotely good to challenge YouTube’s authority, but the site became the safe bay for those who wanted something new, and if that number of fans is counted in millions, it indicates something. The next year the achievement of 1 year of video watched per day was earned, boosting the growth of a website even more.

2016 was a shocking years for the users as the creator and owner of Zippcast announced the second shutdown of the service, justifying his decision with statements that it was too much for him to handle in terms of time and financial situation. Short time after that, another comeback was scheduled and the third launch is scheduled for spring 2017. New crew, new HQ and new prospects yet to discover. Are you waiting for the relaunch?

Starting on March 15, 2005, only a month after the launch of YouTube, Dailymotion was one of the original contestants to challenge YouTube’s position on the market. It was born in the apartment in Paris, fully constructed by two guys with an overall budget of less than $10,000. Now it is on 119th position in terms of the websites that get the most traffic. The content is a combination of random folks who post any videos, original creators with their own unique video products and premium partners that use the platform mainly as a promotion stand for their company, new products etc.

Dailymotion was at first considered to become a European counterpart of YouTube with a potential to keep the Google creation at bay in North America, but today it is clear that competing with such a giant of the industry is nearly impossible. As Dailymotion grew and was raising funds from many sources, including French government, new offices were opened in New York, London, San Francisco, Singapore and the most recent one, in Abidjan. The company began spreading to the international public in 2007 and the process is still going on. Despite the majority of viewers preferring YouTube, there is a solid fanbase of this French video hosting service. 18 languages and localizations for 35 countries is a major indicator of the project’s progress.

Dailymotion assets include apps on many platforms, cloud storage, tools for multiple uploading and collaboration projects with massive brands such as Facebook. Despite losing the competition against the Big Video Brother, YouTube, it is still a competitive and profitable hosting which has the feeling of being home and ability to watch quality content with the introduction of HD video. And what do you think about Dailymotion?

A complete YouTube alternative for some, this video hosting primary was not about challenging the top dogs, but becoming one as the niche was just starting to grow. Two Israeli founders created Metacafe in 2003, two years before the YouTube itself. As many other services of the same niche, it started off with a sole purpose of entertaining and communication between creators and the community. Successful fundraising campaigns allowed the newly-formed company to move the HQ to Palo Alto, the realm of innovation and wild startups.

As Dailymotion and YouTube joined the party and the competition became very strong, the founding fathers of Metacafe accepted a vision of redesigning the whole purpose of the service and steering the development to another direction. This switched Metacafe to shorter clips and videos, which were mainly used for advertising or entertainment. Clips were not as short as Vine’s but brief enough to make people who were interested in such format and length flock to the service.

Metacafe once was a good place for making a profit out of the videos as Producer rewards system was introduced. If the video got 20,000 views, the service would pay a specific sum of money for the next thousand. The program was ceased due to many people wanting to make money, producing content that was lacking quality and questionable profitability of their innovation. This move forced many people to switch the platform and join YouTube, simply because the reward for the quality content had to be in place, as many of the creators quit their jobs to work on the videos.

Metacafe is a place for watching and uploading videos, sharing comments with the help of Facebook, and generally having fun while dealing with more brief clips and photo galleries.

Let us know what you think about the Metacafe!

Created in 2004 and launched in 2005, Revver does not qualify for being among the best streaming sites, but had a strong position of one of the best video hosting services and was the first to introduce payment to the creators for the content, monetizing the traffic through ads. The content is purely generated by users, which are then rewarded with a share of the revenue from advertisements. Revver is also a platform that allowed other sites to use the pattern and create unique “Revverized” services. In 2007 the company announced that $1 million was paid to the creators for their content through the ads system. Due to the poor management and issues with payments the site was eventually shut down in 2011.

Since the introduction, Revver was quick to generate a buzz around the business model and it was easy to drag new creators of quality content with the promises of stable payments. The tags system was groundbreaking and became the highlight of the service. Soon, the agreements with V CAST were signed and Revver users got the opportunity to watch content offered by that service. The project was sold to LiveUniverse in 2008 and that is when the problems emerged. Many issues of payments not being made were registered and the major creators started a fight with the company, demanding large sums, owed them. The problem escalated quickly and many creators have switched their focus on YouTube and transferred their content, quitting Revver and taking a fair share of visitors with them. The decrease in views became more and more staggering and soon there was no other choice but to shut down the whole site, as it was no longer profitable to maintain.

Blip was an ultimate YouTube alternative when it comes to series or shows. After the foundation in 2005, its first major accomplishment was having Slacker Uprising by Michael Moore, the first free film by a respectable director released on the Web, without monetizing the product. Besides that, Blip (formerly Blip.tv) is famous for cooperating with producers, studios, and independent creators so they could release their products on the service and receive payments for it.

2009 was the year worth of notion for the Blip, purely because of major cooperation deals with giants like Vimeo, YouTube, NBC LM New York etc. 100 million views landmark was achieved a year later, a clear sign of the big deals starting to pay off. This allowed the company to pursue and fulfill the goal of becoming the source of top-notch series and shows, accessible to anyone, anytime without the heavy need to rely on weighty services with big prices. Blip created its own studio brand, working directly with talented individuals across the country and work to deliver more of top quality content to the constantly growing audience.

The company was acquired by the Maker Studios in 2013, which led to the terms of agreements to change, as well as some other minor innovations. 2 years after Blip was successfully shut down by its new parent company, putting an end to successful business model of sharing the revenue equally between the service and the owners of the content. That is how the story of the service that has managed to reach half of the monthly views that YouTube had in a much shorter time.

What do you think about Blip? Have you ever followed one of the amazing series on that service and supported the creators? If so, post a comment and describe your experience!

If you are into sites like YouTube, then you will be fond of Twitch as well. It is a huge platform for streaming gaming content, where anyone is able to start the broadcast and reach the top. It started off as a side-project of Justin.tv. Main reason behind creating Twitch was to redirect game streaming community, which grew exponentially, to a new service, dedicated solely to streaming game content. Today it is the biggest streaming platform of the gaming industry and is often an official broadcaster of eSports events, attracting millions of viewers. Twitch also offers an opportunity to watch gaming-related talk shows.

The gaming industry is hugely popular among the masses and it was only the matter of time for Twitch.tv to become more popular than its parent, Justin.tv, causing the latter to change the name to Twitch Interactive and switch the company’s main focus to the game streaming. As of 2015, 100 million views were registered per month, shared between 1.5 million streamers. Such popularity of an independent service quickly drew the attention of the top dogs and information about Google reaching an agreement with Twitch Interactive become public. The deal fell through and Amazon was next to make an offer and summer of 2014 is the time when Twitch became its subsidiary.

Though relatively far from the gaming industry, Amazon’s deal, worth approximately $1 billion, was a step towards allowing developers and publishers to sell their games directly through Twitch. This system means that 25% of the sale value will go to the streaming service, 5% to the broadcaster himself, and the rest to the game devs and publishers. Now it still remains top of the industry, challenging YouTube for the audience and is a definite alternative for those who grew tired of Google’s child.

If you’re looking for websites like YouTube and appear to be using Windows 8 and up, Xbox 360 and up or Windows Phone 8 and up, then Xbox Live might be the thing that makes you forget about searching for such sites. First appearing in 2006 as Zune Video, it gets its name of Xbox Video in 2012. However, the rebranding hits the service again and the name changes finally to the Movies & TV.

The first and the main purpose for the creation of the service was the ability to compete with other major companies such as PlayStation. The focal point of this service is that there can be no copyright violation, therefore all products have to be purchased. If you feel like paying $10-20 for a movie that you will only watch once is too much, then there is an option to rent the film for a smaller price. The catalog can offer the user more than 400,000 TV shows and movies, satisfying the wildest tastes of any individual. It is also possible to watch a 1-minute preview, just so you can make sure that you are paying for a quality content with your favorite actors. The 1080p format allows a Full HD experience with the best cinematography products there are on the market.

Do you support the change of branding to support all Microsoft products and not only resemble the Xbox series? How often do you use the service to watch a Full HD movie on your TV with friends? What do you think about the quality and the list of countries that support the service? Answer any of those questions in the comment section below!

What happens if Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group collaborate on a single project? A true miracle. Vevo is the best place to go if you are looking for a hosting with only music. More than 45 thousand music videos, almost every major artist represented and the number of those keeps growing each day. Moments after the launch, the website became one of the most visited among music services. Vevo uses YouTube to reach a bigger community of music lovers because the service itself is available only to a limited list of countries.

The idea of creating a unified platform for all music videos emerged in 2008 when the two aforementioned giants joined their forces. Warner Music Group accepted the invitation as well but decided to go rogue and create a rival alliance to compete with Vevo. But eventually, WMG joined the party in 2016 and allowed Vevo to use its music videos. Vevo is known for having explicit parts of songs cut out of the videos. This move was criticized by many, as they would not be able to listen to their favorite Eminem or someone else’s tracks and enjoy the lyrics fully. The decision of checking songs like that is purely commercial, as the top dogs wanted their videos to match TV standards and be acceptable for as big of an audience as it can get.

Vevo is famous for its awards and records for the most viewed videos overall or after 24 hours since launch. Those awards were given to people like Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Eminem, Adele, Maroon 5 and many more.

What are your thoughts about Vevo?

It is an IBM company that is a match for those who look for the sites like YouTube. The main function of the service is to allow broadcasters livestream anything they see fit. The audience of the site is now above 80,000,000 users worldwide. The service is available on several languages apart from English, including Korean and Russian. Though being a commercial structure, its lenient policy allows to freely watch the broadcasts and be the streamer yourself cost-effectively. This is provided by the ad revenue system, which allows the site to exist freely without heavy refinancing from the father structure.

It originated in 2007 as a fully independent startup by three founders. The main reason back then was creating the ability for the soldiers who served in Iraq and other far regions to contact their families live and share their thoughts, state of health and how they are coping with the pressing problems of war. This proved to be a good treatment as well, simply because the military people could now share their fears and happy moments of the important and dangerous jobs. The service proved to have enormous potential and aside from soldiers, the site started to perform the same streaming functions for independent creators, major-label companies and politicians including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

As Ustream kept growing, it became partners with Panasonic, Logitech, Samsung, PlayStation and other structures. It was one of the official streaming companies of the latter. Immense growth and popularity persuaded IBM to acquire Ustream and keep that machine going. IBM is constantly developing new technologies and applying them to their subsidiaries, including Ustream, providing the ability to have the cutting edge video technology all the time.

Top pick for people who look for websites like YouTube, Vimeo offers unlimited possibilities, when it comes to high-quality content. The first hosting to introduce HD videos, it remains on top of the list of services to spend time watching videos. Symbiotic creation of words “video” and “me” gave the name for the project.

Features wise, Vimeo is a top service with countless possibilities for the creators of any range and ambitions. Top-notch technologies, including 4K, are fully supported and there is an ongoing work on adapting the service to technical advancements and new ideas on how to do a better job as a video hosting service. Vimeo will not offer you a superb experience free of charge, though a basic free subscription is still an option. There is a standard limit of 500 MB of storage space per week and would not be suitable for someone who makes videos for a living. Vimeo offers Plus, Pro and Business plans, each with unique benefits and pricing. On the first glance, one might think that it is a strict policy that prevents people from starting a channel, but the costs received from subscriptions allow the service to completely avoid ads of any origin and purpose.

Vimeo team has withdrawn the ban on video game content, increasing the popularity of the service and opening new horizons for talented creators. It is also possible to take services of free Vimeo Video School, which is a nice addition to the whole package. How much time do you spend on Vimeo? Would you prefer it over YouTube when it comes to the quality of the platform, content, and possibilities? Tell us in the comments below!