Robb Montgomery

This is really interesting. President Obama and whitehouse.gov are using Vimeo to distribute his White House Web video reports.
This is today’s Presidential address on the White House’s Vimeo channel. The president explains how the budget he sent to Congress will fulfill the promises he made as a candidate, and assures special interests that he is ready for the fight.

What’s really interesting is the way I found this video and the fact that the video itself didn’t play for me on the White House’s official Web site.

I read a news story about the Obama’s new video and followed a link to the White House Web site to watch the Presidential address.
But, there was no video, only an error code where the video should have been.
I am not on Flash 10 and the video embed on the White House’s Web site would not play. But there was a link to the Vimeo clip.

Long story short? Not everyone is on Flash 10, White House. So maybe, um, just could just use the Vimeo embed code yourself on whitehouse.gov?

Here is the lesson for everyone using video on the Web. By using the video embed yourself, you promote the fact that everyone is enabled to help distribute the high quality videos you produce.
So my question is . . why doesn’t the White house use that embed code too? They can solve that pesky technical problem AND help their videos go viral to reach more citizens.

Here’s some text from the Obama monologue that makes this particular film newsworthy today.

I realize that passing this budget won’t be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington. I know that the insurance industry won’t like the idea that they’ll have to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that’s how we’ll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs for American families. I know that banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea that we’re ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that’s how we’ll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable. I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy that will create new jobs and new industries. In other words, I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business,