TroopTube — Is This Really Necessary?

Category: Technology Author : JR Raphael Posted: November 12, 2008
Tags : trooptube, youtube
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TroopTube — Is This Really Necessary?

The U.S. military has launched its own online video sharing site, a year and a half after banning access to YouTube from its networks.

YouTube Light

The new TroopTube, developed in conjunction with Seattle startup Delve Networks, is a familiar enough concept. It’s basically “YouTube Light,” with restrictions. You have to create an account in order to see most of the content, and — according to published reports — the Pentagon “screens each [submission] for taste, copyright violations, and national security issues.”

Access Granted

You might think, then, that access would be limited to only members of the military and perhaps their families — and if that were the case, I could see the justification for the service. But no. Anyone can sign up, and the only verification required is a standard e-mailed activation link.

The official Defense Department reason for banning YouTube was bandwidth primarily, with security cited as a secondary consideration. YouTube at one point questioned the bandwidth claims, suggesting the military should be able to manage heavy traffic if it were so inclined. As for the security side, one could see its merits in the fact that officials will now screen anything a soldier uploads before it goes live — so, any leak of sensitive information would be stopped.

Was this a big problem before, though? Were troops uploading tons of classified data onto YouTube that I never heard about? Were there a lot of attempted attacks occurring as a result of the bandwidth from video sharing sites?

Just asking.

Interesting Features

Justifications aside, Delve seems to have done a decent job with the service. The software automatically detects your speed and plays the video in a size that best matches your connection, and it also converts all videos into text so you can search for specific content with ease. That’s a pretty cool feature.

Of course, the question that remains is what scope of content will be permitted. I’d be curious to hear how any active members of the military feel about the move, and whether the decision to replace YouTube with TroopTube in their lives is seen as okay or problematic.

Delve Networks

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I like sharing videos 1 month ago 1 point
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Hi,
Video sharing is all the rage since a while now, and it does not seem to end. Everybody wants to share their videos, their passions and the things they like. There are so many sites around to publish videos on the web that it is sometimes hard to make a choice. We know some of the big players on the market like YouTube, Revver or Dailymotion, but there are so many others competing to be the number one, or targeting a specific audience, be it geographically (China, Japan, Turkey...), by language (German, Arabic, French...) or for the kind of content they focus on (cooking, planes, extreme sports...).
I have compiled a growing list of already 900 video sharing sites, video search engines, video download sites, and video publication and statistics online services that you can check at http://www.ilikesharingvideos.com
For each of them, you will get useful information such as their history, the country from which most of their visitors come, their niche, their rank, their latest news...
This site offers some other interesting features, like a forum about online videos, how to make money with your videos, how to create your own YouTube site, video contests, etc.
So if you are interested in video sharing or online video marketing, give an eye to this site, it worths it.
Cheers

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http://www.ilikesharingvideos.com

Alex Castro 1 month ago 1 point
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JR,

Thanks for taking the time to coverage TroopTube's launch. With the military banning YouTube, service members and their family members lost a way for them to stay in touch by sharing videos. Think about how disappointing it would be to miss your child's first steps?

It is easy for a civilian to think the DoD's emphasis on secrecy and control is paranoid or censorship. But let's step out of our tech world where we beat our chests about how we bravely embrace risk? What risk does a start-up founder take? Lost salary? Public humiliation? Yes, both not pleasant. In the military taking risks mean people's lives are at stake. It's the .001% chance something happens and people get killed that drives their thinking, which is very different than how we typically think about things in the civilian world.

Let's be honest, YouTube is great, but all the video in the world for the rest of man kind's existence will not be hosted on a single site (no matter how badly Google wants that to be true). As video becomes part of the normal fabric of the web, it will become commonplace, and available on almost all websites. We provide a platform that enables professional or UGC video on anyone's website in a way that fits in with their strategy (instead of Google's).

Alex Castro

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