In addition to Vimeo and YouTube, the White House makes the presidential addresses available as mp3 audio files and mp4 video files that can be uploaded into any video player. (YouTube video files can be shared through linking and embedding but they cannot be downloaded for insertion into, say, Brightcove players.)And today, the YouTube version of the president's address wasn't even easily found on WhiteHouse.gov's blog, which offered up a flash video player with no logo as its main mechanism for viewing, then linked out -- under the link "also available here" -- to Vimeo. --Read more at WashPost.
The use of YouTube by government has had it's share of critics. Some folks are saying that White House is "abandoning" YouTube, but the fact they continue to upload video to their channel disputes that. In addition, the White House has been uploading video to both YouTube and Vimeo for the past three months. See, for example, videos from the transition teams on Vimeo here.The team did not retrofit videos already embedded from YouTube, so you may see different types of players, depending on the blog entry you are viewing.
The use of third party video players, like the ones used by the White House, is getting caught in the policies of government--privacy, accessibility, endorsement, even gifting. As government continues to extend into non dot-gov sites the tension between openness and participation and federal rules of engagement will challenge many trying to meet up with citizens where they are.
@Ari, a version of your question is why does government use proprietary Adobe Flash since it is not universal? I recently learned that there may be some licensing issues that keep the Iphone from using flash. Although I may be sorry that I said that...
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