Something like this I just sent to the city council:
This year the City of Olympia spent $20,000 (following a $45,000 set up fee) to stream videos of our city council meetings, along with some other videos, online. This seems to be a waste of money to me.
Google Video, or some other similar free service, seems like a better option.
Yesterday I cut out of one of the streamed videos and educational portion on the city’s budget (available here). Instead of wading through the streaming function on our city’s website, I decided it would be better that this portion of the movie available in a much simpler format.
TCTV actually posts many of its videos online at Google Video. The advantage, other than cost, to use such a service is that once the movies are up, they can be shared. Bloggers can embed them into their own sites and the links are much easier to email than the current service.
All of the video files the city produces could be available online in totally public and shareable format, rather than the expensive and proprietary fashion they are now. Even if the city keeps it contract with the firm it uses the stream the videos, they should also upload movies to places like Google Video.
I agree, but it’s hard for city IT folks to jump on every thing that comes along. There’s a lot to be said for paying a service to take care of this kind of thing.