First, there were the Twitter picture services. Soon, there were a lot of those. Then, there were the Twitter video services. And now, there are getting to be a lot of those. So how do you choose which one to use? Most people base it on two things: First, third-party Twitter client support. And second, features. Today, Vidly is launching one such feature.
Vidly is claiming to be the first HD video service for Twitter. HD video on the web has always been sort of a hazy thing due to varying expectations of resolutions and bitrates, but it seems safe to say that Vidly’s video is the highest quality out there among its competitors. Several of them offer video quality that can be grainy or choppy, but these new Vidly videos are smooth and clear.
So why bother? After all, most of these videos are relatively short and storing and serving HD clearly costs more. Vidly is doing it because they see it as a great tool for brands to use to further promote themselves on Twitter. That makes sense, if someone like National Geographic is going to tweet out videos, it probably doesn’t want them to look bad. In fact, Vidly’s biggest competitor here may be that these brands figure out how to store their own HD media and simply tweet that out.
Along with the HD launch, Vidly is hosting a new competition alongside mobile video camera maker Flip. Each Friday for a few weeks, Vidly and Flip will give away a branded MinoHD device. To enter, you simply have to tweet something with the #vidly hashtag.
Vidly underwent a namechange (it was TwitVid.io) in August, and picked up some fresh funding. It already has several brands using its service, now it’s just a matter of convincing them, and others, that it’s the go-to Twitter video service.
It’s also worth noting that any HD which was previously uploaded to Vidly will now also be in HD.