Techcrunch has a report today on MoveDigital, a site that gives organization a quick and easy way to distribute their videos in a variety of digital formats. I gave it a go and the site is very simple to use. The first step is to create an account and upload your video to the MoveDigital site. Copies of the video are then created in a variety of different formats, meaning end users can simply download the video to their computer in its original format (say wmv), acquire the video using bit torrent or download a version that plays on mobile video devices. Below is a screenshot of a widget you can put your website to distribute your video:

Organizations will be charged based on the amount of bandwidth they use (video size * number of users who download the video). So the pricing is based entirely on how much you use the tool. In addition, users who have accounts can choose to donate their own bandwidth to download the video.

Interestingly, according to TechCrunch, John Edward (D-NC) has already signed up for the service. You can view the torrent version of his videos here and the mobile versions here.

I think this is great technology but don’t think there are wide ranging political applications for MoveDigital during the 2006 cycle. Maybe 2008. I’m a pretty big tech nerd and I only occasionally use bit torrent and don’t really have much interest in downloading and watching videos on my phone. I’m pretty happy just watching videos on Youtube or other websites and its the rare video that I actually want to save on my computer for eternity. If I don’t do these things, I find it hard to believe that others are clamoring to at this point. Particularly to acquire campaign videos.

It’ll be interesting to watch though. And folks that are interested can monitor the Edwards page to see how he is doing – the site shows how many times each video has been downloaded.