HeySpread is a new service from the folks at Particles (creators of HeyWatch and HeyCast) that lets users upload a single video to multiple video-hosting providers. Just pick the video you want to upload from your hard drive, and HeySpread will pull up a listing of various video hosts. All you need is log-in information for each of them, and the file will automatically get sent out to each, assuming you've got the correct credentials.
HeySpread works with YouTube, Google, and MySpace Video, along with DailyMotion, Blip.TV, and four others. In my testing with five of the nine available video services, only one upload appeared to have failed (Yahoo Video), and the rest went up without a hitch.
This is a very helpful service for people who would like to upload things in one place, or those with slow Internet connections. Since you're basically just uploading it to HeySpread to take care of, you can avoid having to double, triple, or quadruple up on upload time to multiple services. The one missing piece is an editor for some of the more advanced options--like privacy settings, video descriptions, and additional links--on these video-hosting services. Of course, in most cases you can go in later on and add them by hand.
Just enter in your video hosting log-ins in nine of the supported sites, and your video will automatically be uploaded to each.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
HeyCast is a new service from the folks that made HeyWatch [review], the online video conversion service. It lets you grab videos from popular hosting sites such as YouTube, Google Video, and Apple's Quicktime movie trailers site, and clump them together into a handy RSS feed you or anyone else can subscribe to in iTunes or other feed readers. The feed isn't just your standard RSS though--HeyCast grabs the Flash videos, converts them, and makes them available for offline viewing on your computer or portable devices.
I gave it a go this morning and came across a few hiccups. My main qualm is that HeyCast seems designed to be incredibly restrictive to novice users who want to use it for free. Since the service grabs these Web videos and converts them into iPod-friendly MP4 video files, it requires users to purchase encoding credits from sister-product HeyWatch. Users also need a place to host the files, which requires them to have their own FTP server or an account with Amazon.com's S3 Web storage service. If you don't have access to either of these, you're limited to just five videos that get capped off at one minute each.
I love the idea of letting people make their own podcast feeds using various Web video content, although HeyCast makes it a little harder than it should be. On a publishing level, simpler solutions can be had setting up something short and sweet with Tumblr, or creating a full-fledged blog with services such as Blogger or WordPress.com. For full-fledged media aggregation and distribution like what HeyCast is attempting to offer, simple solutions don't seem readily available--yet.
HeyCast RSS feeds can be viewed as video microblogs, or subscribed to in iTunes or other RSS subscription services.
(Credit: HeyCast.com)
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