Video at WA Has Gotten a HUGE Facelift!

byCarson

2.4M followers

Updated 5 years ago

As each week passes, we are consistently rolling out new "code" here at Wealthy Affiliate. Each and every week is one of improvement, with some projects being visible within the community (to you), whereas other just as significant projects are being rolled out. Code, design, or speed improvements for example.

We have just released a significant update to our video platform at WA. Over the years, video technology has improved drastically and we have adjusted and keep ahead of the curve in terms of this technology. We originally (many moons ago) had out own video technology, we then moved to Vimeo, then we moved back to out own video technology, and now we are transitioning our video database and environment over to Wistia.

As we see technology around us that is better than what we are currently offering, or as we come up with our own in house programmatic advancements, we push forward with them and we do so very quickly. Our latest update is a shift to Wistia, which we feel are the leaders in the video space.

First though, I want to discuss some potential issues that a technology company can run into when it comes to serving video and offering a high quality user video experience.

The Complexities of Offering a Quality Video Experience

Video is not as simply as creating a video and uploading it. Not when you are offering an experience that relies on the reliability, the cross browser and cross device quality (and the combinations thereof), the load speeds, and the overall distribution of video. Even the likes of YouTube have issues with video, and that is because there are many complexities to playing videos, and playing them well.

Serving your own videos can be a nightmare, we have taken it on multiple times and we have implemented it very well. The problem when you are developing your own technology that isn't really all that unique to you (IE, there are millions of people using video with their businesses), sometimes it is best to go with a solution that is the most reliable in the space.

We feel that the best of the best is Wistia (which I will spend some time discussing why).

So, Why Exactly Have We Chosen Wistia?

When you are looking for a video platform, there are several things that are important to us.

Reliability. First of all, can the videos play across many browsers and devices? This is easier said than done. There are many browsers, there are plugins/add-ons that can conflict, and many devices these days that can cause all sorts of havoc when trying to distribute video content. If a video cannot play (and it can happen), it frustrates the end user and although it is often times out of out control, it can hurt our brand.

Speed & Compression. A video platform is only as good as it's ability to serve the content with speed. More often than not, any video loading issues stem out of poor video compression, or slow servers that are hosting the content (or both), or the users download speed. Speed and compression are of the utmost focus to us when we choose a video platform, they need to be able to work on internet connections that are not as quick.

Video Quality. All our videos here at Wealthy Affiliate are high definition, so the video platform that we choose needs to be able to appropriately deliver the BEST quality, based on how fast the viewers connection can handle. Wistia is very good at automatically handling for different sizes and quality, based on what the viewers current connection can handle. If it is unable to load the best quality version, then it will automatically choose a lower resolution video as it will serve on that connection faster. Quality equates to quantity (more people watching more videos). To us this is a very good thing and we feel that our quality of video has never been as good as it is now with our latest release and custom implementation of Wistia.

Advanced Analytics. To improve our WA training, we need to understand not just where people are "getting stuck", but where they are losing interest. How a video is delivered, how the training is structured, the length of a video, and how the voice comes across in a video can all have impacts on video engagment (how long somoene watches it). If people are not taking part in the education or just doing "part" of it, then it has a bearing out their overall success (which is our focus). Fortunately Wistia has some of the best and most insightful Analytics I have seen, video or otherwise.

As you can see from the following comparison, the user interface is also a lot more current feeling vs our WA in-house player which we began phasing out last week.

One great little element that we've included in this upgrade is the ability to view video in-line in numerpus areas of WA. We embed video's in our main Certification and Bootcamp training sets of courses and lessons as well as the Activity Dashbaord. These embedded video's now open in a beautiful full-width views when they are played so that you can engage in the video in a full High Definition popout player without losing your position on the page!

Videos Will Continue to be a Key Part of the Education at Wealthy Affiliate

Videos are important to our training, our service, and likely they will be an important part of your website/business as you move forward. There are many applications where you will make use of video and it is important that you understand that not all video is built equally.

We use video a great deal here within Wealthy Affiliate and when we improve the services that our videos are run on, you and all fellow members will benefit from this. Quality of video, play speeds, video features, design improvements, and the ability for everyone to successfully watch the videos are going to be huge for the education element here at WA.

Additionally, the ability for us to see where people are getting stuck based on more advanced video analytics is going to lead to a great deal of improvements in the training structure and in some cases, we may be replacing entire segments of the training.

If you've noticed our Wistia video here at WA let us know how you like it! If not, then you can look forward to an enhanced video experience going foward at Wealthy Affiliate!

If you want to check out a Wistia Video, you can try the latest Webinar replay below:

Have a wonderful week and we would love to hear what think about this latest enhancement at WA!