From working with businesses using video for the last two years, Wistia knows that only a small fraction of the problem is getting the video from point A to point B. Most companies are not using user-generated content, but need more professional content created by in-house production departments or third party video producers. In the world of business, everything — even video — needs to be measurable to justify the expenditure. Wistia’s private video sharing platform allows companies to get the most value from their video by providing the most sophisticated video analytics available.

Wistia’s patent pending Video Engagement Tracking (VET, click here for a brief video demo: http://wistia.com/product/tracking) allows administrators to see exactly which portions of a video a specific user has watched and which they haven’t. VET gives the admins complete transparency into every action a user takes while watching the video. When did they hit play, where did they seek to, which parts did they rewind to and watch again? All of these are questions which, when the answers are put together, help determine how engaged a user is with the content. YouTube “views” work well when I’m trying to get 100,000 people to watch my video. When I share a video with 50 employees that potentially cost several thousand dollars and took a month to produce, I have to know more.

These VET metrics are extremely valuable to organizations who are using video in the context of sales, high-value training, marketing, medical clinical trials — the list goes on. To first accomplish this, I need to be able to share the video with those outside of my orginization (which I don’t believe the current Google application allows). As an example, if I am a salesperson and I share a new product demo video with a prospect, having complete insight into how this prospect interacts with video allows me to assess how engaged they are with our messaging. Once I know that they are engaged, I can start a conversation with them within Wistia by giving them additional content or allowing them to ask questions timecoded to moments in the video. A prospect that goes to the page containing the video and takes no other action is much less valuable than a prospect who watched the whole video and then backed up to see information about a particular feature again. It allows me to spend more time on those prospects who are more engaged with the product and where I am more likely to close the deal.

In conclusion, we believe that the release of the Google product, as with Cisco’s foray into “Enterprise TV”, validates that there is a significant market for video in business. However, from our experience helping companies use video in high-value ways, we know that companies need more than these basic services (i.e. robust analytics and tracking) in order to realize the full potential of their content.