Some Advice

An informative Slashdot thread on the usage and relative merits of various video formats. It's aimed at sites that host a lot of video files. For example....

LOCAL TELEVISION NEWS STATIONS

It's bad enough that y'all choke your sites with all the blinky stuff, polls and ads, and remote-served crap that makes waiting for the actual news information to load such a bleeding pain. Remember, this is Memphis and a whole lot of your potential customers are still on dial-up. Have some mercy and maybe more of them will visit you.

More importantly, offer video segments in something other than Microsoft Windows Media Player format! Especially when it has to be the latest version. Most folks, like me, will just not bother with following links to download and install some bit of software for a 30 second video segment. Many of your visitors will be using Mac or Linux, too. Have some consideration. Use a platform independent format like Quicktime or RealPlayer. Or at least offer different options.

Nothing says "Screw you" like forcing customers to fit the demands of the vendor. Hasn't Microsoft abuse taught y'all anything? You're in the business of delivering information. Get serious about it.