Update: The sale for the S3 Video plugin for WordPress is now live at just $17.00.
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(Did you know you can get a free Amazon AWS account [all Amazon services including S3] for the first 12 months? Just Google it for the details.)
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Plugin Great members will find the plugin in the members area.
Why would you want to use Amazon S3 to store your videos?
Many small business owners mistakenly think there are only two options: YouTube, where everything is public and you’re limited to 15 minutes, or self-hosted, where you have total control and a hefty hosting bill to match.
YouTube (YT) is fine for general purpose videos, but there are times when you don’t want YT ads to display on your videos, or maybe you have content tucked inside a membership area that you don’t want people to be able to see or download?
Or you don’t want to be limited to a 15 minute video?
Paid-for content has many times been stolen and has then popped up elsewhere.
I know for a fact that this has happened to a lot of people including me.
Yes, you can mark videos as hidden on YouTube, and if it’s not a course or something particularly sensitive and you don’t mind the ads or the initial 15 minute constraint, then it’s an okay solution to that problem.
Another alternative is to self-host the video of course, but this can work out to be very expensive very quickly if you’re not careful. Sometimes you’re looking at 50c per gigabyte or more as opposed to Amazon’s approximate 14c. (And possible bandwidth caps too.)
You’ll also find yourself – sooner or later – in the position where you want to PROTECT your content and only let your members see it. Maybe for a course or a paid-for newsletter…
That’s why Amazon S3 is a perfect solution to the problem. Amazon have massive amounts of storage capacity and bandwidth and there’s pretty much nothing they can’t handle.
Every file you upload to Amazon S3 is automatically protected.
No-one can download or view unless they have the correct credentials.
What the S3 plugin does is allow access to the videos on a case by case basis. So people can view the videos on your site, but they can’t download them.
This totally sidesteps the issue that I’ve run into in the past where people have signed up to a membership, downloaded all the content and then asked for a refund.
Then I’ve seen my videos etc turning up on someone else’s site.
With the S3 plugin you can protect your sensitive stuff easily and without worrying about it being stolen.
Going back to the first paragraph, the reason I used capitals is because I’ve tried some other S3 plugins and while some are free and don’t work, others are horribly complicated and paid for.
I strongly believe in the KISS principle – Keep It Simple, Stupid! And while sometimes you just can’t get away from complicated, this isn’t one of them.
Adding videos to your S3 account and then displaying them securely on your blog SHOULD be EASY and with my new S3 plugin, it is.
The plugin is designed to connect to the Amazon S3 service and then stream the videos directly to your blog. It’s clever. It uses your Amazon issued secret key to allow the viewing on YOUR site only.
That means people can’t get at the URL to download your videos. (Well maybe they could, but it’s VERY difficult and probably only a programmer could do it. Nothing is absolutely impossible.)
Once you have your Amazon secret key, installing, configuring, and using the plugin takes moments. In fact it takes a few seconds to add a protected video to your site.
At just $10 during this opening sale and including a full client / flipper (developer) licence, it’s worth every penny.
-Frank Haywood
