An Engineer

By popular demand, we have increased our video limits. You can now upload any video up to 10 minutes in length, up from 5 minutes previously. The per-video file size limit has been increased from 1GB to 1.5GB. We chose this super-large file size limit to allow customers to upload any video that fits within the time limit without thinking about the file size. There are some point and shoot cameras, such as the Canon Powershot cameras, that create very large video files. With our limits, you can drop those videos in without thinking about their size.

As before, we convert each video into two versions, one for web streaming, the other for archive. The webstreaming version is encoded at 768 kilobits/second in Flash format. The DVD-quality version is encoded at 3 megabits/second in MPEG 4 format. Flash was chosen because it is widely compatible with most web browsers. MPEG 4 was chosen for the archival encoding because most video enthusiasts like the format and it is a modern codec, providing good data compression and high quality.

Both the webstreaming version and archival MPEG 4 version are available for download on customer websites. Note that we used to use Flash for the archival version and, as of now, we have not gone back and re-converted older video to MPEG 4. Also, we actually don’t always convert your video for the archival version. If you give us a video that is under 3 megabits/second, we keep the exact video you uploaded as the archival version.

We have also worked hard to deploy more resources for video conversion so you should see you video appear on the website in Flash form sooner than before.

Overall, we believe our video sharing experience is second to none. We convert a wide variety of formats, allow HUGE files, keep an archival version as well as a web version, and incorporate videos directly into our slide shows. Enjoy.

I was reading a piece by Jason Fried at 37 Signals and it resonates well with our philosophy at Phanfare. At Phanfare, we call the folks who create albums customers, not users. This may seem like a minor semantic distinction but it goes to the root of one of the ways Phanfare is different. In the customer relationship, you pay for the service you receive. As such, your interests are well aligned with the other party’s interests. Compare that, for example, to a relationship where you get the service for free and the service provider has advertisers. In that scenario, the provider has two masters: the advertiser and the viewer. This conflict leads to compromise.

Photos and videos are the most important asset most people have on their computer. Yes, you also have your music collection, but that is just a copy of commercial content and is not irreplaceable. For your photos and videos having a customer relationship is critical. If your hard drive crashes and you need your photos back, you want to be able to call the company, have somebody pick up the phone, and ask them for your stuff back as a customer.

The other dominant revenue model on the Internet is to provide services supported by ads. But do you ever really feel like a customer of a free ad-supported service? For example, I watch Grey’s Anatomy on ABC, but I don’t consider myself a customer of ABC.

We love our customers. We also love that folks who decide not to buy our service go away after the free trial. That leaves us more resources to focus on our customers. We answer their email, fixate on their problems, talk to them on the phone and generally jump over backward to make them happy.