1. Must be able to control access to the video
2. Have a sharp looking player – Youtube is a little unprofessional especially if the video goes on the the sales letter
3. Not be hosted on their own web hosting account

The third requirement can be huge because bandwidth can get very expensive if you have a lot of hits on the video and videos are much, much larger which means one simple video can suck up all your bandwidth for the month in a heartbeat.

If you want to DIY – I’d probably say go with Amazon S3. I host all 50+ videos for the Blogging Starter Pack on Amazon S3. You can purchase a nice video player pretty inexpensively from places like FlashDen. However, this still requires a little bit of technical work. Many small business owners I talk to like and want the convenience of Youtube but with more privacy options and a better player is that really that much to ask?

I personally think no but from my research, there seems to be an unserved market here. Video hosting sites that allow business/commercial for small business use (read budget friendly) is pretty hard to come by.

My first stop was Vimeo because I liked the quality of the videos there but alas – this is what I found in their FAQ’s.

So scratch Vimeo. Next, there is Brightcove. This company has many high profile customers but they do not publish their pricing and while this is not a reliable method, it kinda leads me to think they may be expensive like enterprise level expensive and possibly beyond the reach of small and micro businesses.

Finally, after running through several video hosting sites that do not allow commercial use, I re-visited a system I have been testing out – Easy Video Producer. The people who created this tool made it for network marketers who want to use videos as a method of building their list or lead generation purposes. I’m just giving you fair warning that if the video and copy on the sites looks skewed towards that, it is. Actually, they confused me a lot too but I took a chance to get signed up since it is free to check out the video system. While their user interface could be improved, it looks a bit dated and at times confusing, if you focus on the tools itself, this thing is pretty cool.

Here’s what I liked:

If you want to put your video on a squeeze page or opt-in page, they have pre-made templates, some of them fairly nice looking. All you need to do is record your video – you can do this using your normal video recording tools or if you don’t have one, a web cam will work, EVP has a on site video recorder much like YouTube you can record on the fly. Then upload or save it. They do go through an approval process which can be a drag if you’re in a hurry. Hopefully they will remove this or have quicker methods of approval. Once your video goes live, then all you need to do is copy the link to the video, copy the embed code if you’re posting on to your own web pages. Or, you can push the video to a squeeze page template they provide.

Oh and yes, you can make the video private to their network and still embed the video on your own pages which fulfills part of the requirements.

There is just one caveat – they are right now re-launching their web hosting service – a sister site. So be prepared for emails in your inbox promoting that.

Image by Keenan Milligan

The process is easy. Just paste the video URL, add your text or speech bubbles, add the link and BubblePly will generate a new URL for you to share the video. You don’t have to register, but if you do, you can edit and also delete the projects you’ve done.

My only hesitation is – third party URL. I guess that can’t be helped when it comes to a tool for the masses. Regardless, I’d still use a redirect so I an always control the link. Another big question is, would the video producers be happy about it? Probably not which is why asking for permission is important. But I think affiliate managers would be kinda crazy if they won’t allow their own affiliates to use their videos this way. Personally, I’d encourage my own affiliates to do so.

This is not for big time TV or movies but web video producers on YouTube, Metacafe, Revver, Vimeo etc. I haven’t checked it out but thought it might be useful to you.

Jigsaw is at heart, a business directory. It lists key people in different positions throughout an organization. You can search for contacts by geographical area, company or industry. You can also list yourself.

I can see how it can be useful, apart from the more obvious – sales leads generation, it could be used for sourcing or maybe to pitch an idea or simply initiate contact.

Sparkplugging is starting a new tradition called ‘Spark an Idea Thursday’. Each week we’ll be sharing some great ideas for a topic of interest to our readers. We invite you to grab our image and carry the tradition through to your own blog! If you do, please link back to this post so we know where you were inspired!

This week’s Spark an Idea deals with making a new business ally.

Most who read this (and other blogs in the Sparkplugging network) know full well how important it is to have a tech person whom you can call on for help and guidance. Technology powers much of our world and business – if not all of it. Being one of those tech persons, I generally feel good about what I do and being in the background, in the support role doesn’t bother me much. I was just thinking the other day how much I like being the one who makes things work behind the scenes.

But what if you thought of your tech people or friend not as a support staff but a real partner. I’ve been working with clients and talented programmers alike for many years now. One thing I do know is if you have an idea but not the technical skills to achieve it, take the idea to a true blue tech person and lay it out for them. 9 out of 10 times they’d get really excited over it. Especially if the idea is a good one because it allows them to stretch, learn new skills and practice the ones they are good at.

Plus, if you give them the opportunity to be a partner in the project, it helps them break out of the trading hours for dollars role and flex their muscles as an entrepreneur.

I am very blessed to have clients who looked at me that way. As a real part of their team and someone to do joint ventures with, not just tech support who gets called on to bail you out only when trouble comes knocking. For me and those clients – now business partners, it has been a very profitable venture in more ways than one.

My natural reaction is “How do I get my blog on there?” And voila! Found the link.

Unfortunately, they are working through a backlog but I’m very pumped about submitting.

What I also love about MOO is that they are so incredibly versatile. They are integrated with Flickr, Vox, even Facebook, which makes it a snap to create products out of your own photo collections, no matter where you have them. They also have ready-made collections from fantastic photographers & illustrators.

Personally, for business use, I love that you can pack a pound of branding into an ounce of pricing. Everything MOO.com carries is less than $25 a set (excluding Christmas cards). The print quality is phenomenal, as is the paper stock. With just a little bit of photo cleanup in a program like Photoshop, you can take pictures on your front porch and turn them into an entire set of pro-looking promotional tools (Yes, that’s me. On my porch. And my 13 year old daughter took the pictures too – talk about low-budget!).

[CraftBoom has a tutorial on polishing up photos just like this one]

Since I’m working on heavily promoting my speaking career this year, I made a whole set specifically for this purpose, including notecards, stickers, and the MiniCards (business cards). One afternoon of photos and photo retouching turned out this set (that I’m quite proud of, thank you very much)!

MOO products are really a must if you are a creative – you can’t get cheaper and more high quality materials made of your own illustrations, crafts, design work, or photography. They are also perfect for coaches, authors, speakers, or anyone else that is promoting their personality as part of their business. But what’s cool is that you can also have fun with them and make sticker books of your kids’ drawings, make flash-cards, retail hang-tags, wedding thank you notes, pretty much anything you can imagine.

Yes, I know this sounds like a big, fat, sappy commercial. But that’s what MOO gets for making me fall in love with them.

Unfortunately, “Free” on this one is something I wasn’t able to find. But I did find some deals for you:

Branders.com has a coupon for $50 off your first order – they sell branded pens, pencils, erasers, and just about anything else under the sun. They also have FREE samples, so at least there’s a little bit of free action going on over there.

Thanks for the request and keep them coming – I’m happy to hunt down deals for you!